Why Fixing Everything Yourself Is the Problem Not the Solution

If solving problems were the path to the top, every CEO would be a former help desk manager.

You are probably proud of your ability to handle any challenge that lands on your desk. Your team knows they can count on you for answers and quick fixes, and you wear that reputation as a badge of honour.

That reputation is the problem.

Your brain is a solution-generating machine. The moment someone starts sharing a challenge, you are already three steps into solving it. Years of experience have taught you to pattern-match problems with solutions at speed.

This is a sophisticated form of career limitation. We call it being The Village Fisherman: everyone relies on you to eat.

Here is what is happening right now. A problem appears, and within seconds you are sharing your wisdom, outlining solutions, feeling good about being helpful. Everyone leaves satisfied. You feel valuable. Your team member feels supported.

Something critical is happening beneath the surface, though.

Every time you jump in with an answer, you rob your team of the chance to think deeply. Your solutions, however brilliant, are stunting their growth. Your helpfulness is creating dependency. And dependency means escalations keep landing on your desk, decisions get made at the wrong level, and you keep missing hours you cannot afford to lose.

Here is what a different approach looks like in practice.

When someone brings you a problem, ask: "What's your suggestion based on your thinking?" Then do the hardest thing a leader can do. Sit in silence and wait.

The discomfort you feel is your ego fighting for survival. That silence you are avoiding is where your leadership growth lives.

Try it tomorrow. When someone brings you a problem, resist the urge to solve it. Create space for them to think. Watch what happens when you stop filling the air with your solutions and start asking thoughtful questions instead.

Your team will get uncomfortable at first. They might struggle. In that struggle, something useful emerges: their critical thinking, their own solutions, often better than what you would have suggested.

What nobody tells you about senior leadership is this. Your experience, however valuable, matters less than their growth. Your solutions, however brilliant, matter less than their development.

Want to test whether you are stuck in the solution trap? Think about your last five team interactions. How many ended with you providing the answer? If you are solving most of the problems landing on your desk, you are not leading. You are a bottleneck.

Leadership is about building a team that is confident finding its own solutions, making decisions without you, and thinking critically without your input.

Your silence is often worth more than your solution. Your questions create more than your answers.

In your next leadership interaction, fight the urge to solve. Create space for others to think. You might be surprised at what emerges when you stop being the answer to every question.

[About the Author: Jimmy Burroughes transforms overwhelmed managers into strategic leaders. Through his Amplify Leadership program, he helps leaders reclaim their time and maximize their impact.]

If this sounds like your week

Your managers are not the problem. They are where the problem is stuck.

When your last leadership spend was signed off, did anyone go back to those managers' bosses and ask what changed? That question is the JBL Outcome Standard, and it is how I work.

• Find the friction. A short diagnostic that shows which decisions are stalling, and at what level.
• Am I the bottleneck? Ten questions on where your week is actually going.
• How I work with GMs. Six weeks, one hour a week, up to twelve of your managers, scored by their own bosses.
• Beat Burnout, Boost Performance. The book.
• The High Performance Leader podcast.

Managers I work with reclaim around four hours a week, and their bosses score the change 8.75 out of 10. Would it be a crazy idea to find out how we did this? Book a scoping call.