Bring Me Solutions!

Reading time: 3 minutes

Management has a well-known mantra: "Don't bring me problems; bring me solutions".

This principle reflects the belief that managers are paid to solve problems, not to complain about them. While this mindset encourages accountability and proactive behaviour, it’s not always the best approach. Sometimes, simply demanding solutions can lead to incomplete, short-sighted, or even damaging outcomes.

Let’s explore when this mindset is valuable, and when managers need a different approach.

When to Push for Solutions

In the daily operations of an organization, expecting managers to address issues with potential solutions makes sense. This expectation fosters responsibility and cultivates a culture of problem-solving. Managers who only complain or pass problems upward fail to deliver the value their roles require.

Pushing for solutions works best in environments where:

• Managers deeply understand the company’s context, processes, and procedures.
• The organizational culture promotes open communication, decision-making transparency, and continuous learning, where mistakes are seen as inevitable steps toward success.
• Managers actively mentor their teams, creating a foundation of trust.

In these cases, managers understand their roles and recognize how their decisions impact other areas of the organization. They proactively consult with colleagues to ensure their solutions are well-rounded and broadly supported. Such cultures thrive on collaboration and trust, allowing managers to contribute solutions aligning with the organization’s overarching goals.

However, there are times when managers should resist defaulting to "solution mode" and adopt a more nuanced perspective. Let’s explore these situations.

1. Lack of Organizational Maturity

The higher a manager’s rank, the greater the expectation that their solutions integrate the needs of multiple stakeholders and address organizational complexity. However, this is often not the case when a manager lacks the necessary maturity, whether organizational or personal. 

For instance, a newly promoted manager may approach problems with a siloed mindset, proposing quick fixes that only address their department's immediate needs. This lack of perspective can result in:

• A logistics manager suggests a new supplier without considering its impact on product quality or client satisfaction.
• An HR manager proposing initiatives disconnected from budget constraints or managers’ actual needs.
• A marketing manager rolls out a promotional campaign to generate leads but fails to inform or coordinate with the sales team. The sales team is caught unprepared to handle the influx, leading to poor customer follow-up and diminished campaign returns.
• An IT manager implements a new project management tool to streamline workflows without properly consulting end-users or providing adequate training. The result is frustration among employees, reduced productivity, and resistance to adopting the tool.
• An operations manager decides to cut costs by switching to a cheaper material for production without involving the procurement team. This leads to delays and quality issues due to supplier reliability problems, ultimately affecting customer satisfaction.

While these solutions may work in the short term, they often lead to conflicts between departments, operational inefficiencies, and an overall sense of "firefighting." Eventually, senior leaders find themselves stepping in as referees or becoming the ultimate decision-makers.

This scenario is especially common when a highly skilled technical employee is promoted into management without sufficient attention to their leadership capabilities. For example, a team leader who excels technically may believe they must make decisions alone to demonstrate their expertise. This behaviour can alienate peers, disrupt workflows, and create tension within teams.

At first, senior leaders may appreciate such a decisive approach. However, over time, the consequences of poorly thought-out "quick fixes" erode trust and increase the burden on upper management.

The real solution involves helping such managers understand:

• The role of authority and power in an organization.
• How to collaborate effectively with peers.
• How to involve team members while maintaining credibility and control.

This type of development often requires tailored coaching to help individuals address and overcome deep-seated fears, such as fear of judgment, failure, exposure, making decisions, competition, or vulnerability when seeking input from others. When left unchecked, these fears can severely limit a manager's ability to lead effectively and collaborate constructively.

The coaching process goes beyond addressing these fears—it fosters a mindset shift that allows individuals to:

Relearn a sense of safety in their professional and personal interactions, creating a foundation for open communication and trust.

Practice letting go of unrealistic expectations, and understanding that perfection is neither achievable nor necessary for success.

Embrace a mindset of possibility, focusing on what is accessible and actionable at any given moment instead of being paralyzed by unattainable goals.

Adopt a step-by-step approach to challenges, breaking down complex problems into manageable actions, fostering both progress and confidence.

Cultivate mindfulness and presence, ensuring they remain fully engaged and intentional in every aspect of their leadership and decision-making.

Learning to self-regulate and use emotions to get informed better.

This journey also involves redefining core concepts such as:

Success and failure: Moving away from rigid, outcome-based definitions to more nuanced understandings that value learning, resilience, and progress.

Winning and losing: Shifting from zero-sum thinking to a perspective that celebrates collaboration and shared achievements.

Performance: Transitioning from a results-only focus to a balanced view that includes personal growth, team dynamics, and organizational impact.

Collaboration: Recognizing the power of collective intelligence and the strength that comes from diverse perspectives and mutual respect.

Satisfaction and fulfilment: Prioritizing purpose, alignment with values, and meaningful contributions over superficial metrics of success.

By addressing these elements, individuals not only overcome immediate challenges but also develop a sustainable mindset for growth, adaptability, and fulfilment. This transformative process enables them to lead with confidence, inspire trust, and navigate complexity with clarity and purpose.

 2. Navigating Complexity at the C-Suite Level

CEOs often grapple with extraordinary-complex challenges that span multiple departments, functions, and external factors. These challenges require solutions that go beyond a single perspective or departmental focus. For instance, consider a company facing declining market share due to external economic pressures. A functional leader might propose a “solution” like reducing costs in their department. While well-intentioned, such a piecemeal approach could inadvertently deepen the issue by undermining the company’s long-term competitiveness.

In these scenarios, the CEO’s role is to:

• Encourage leaders to propose ideas that align with the company’s vision, rather than isolated solutions that serve only their department.
• Foster cross-functional collaboration, ensuring that decisions account for the interplay between departments.
• Gather diverse perspectives, equipping their team to craft holistic strategies that address both the root cause and peripheral impacts of the challenge.
• Balance short-term fixes with long-term sustainability, ensuring immediate actions don’t compromise future opportunities.
• Weigh operational realities against growth objectives, carefully considering trade-offs that could affect the company’s trajectory.
• Develop leaders’ strategic thinking skills, guiding them to see beyond their functional silos and think like organizational architects.
• Set the tone for open communication and alignment, ensuring all teams feel empowered to contribute without fear of stepping outside their functional boundaries.
• Monitor and manage external factors, such as regulatory changes, market trends, and competitive dynamics, integrating them into the company’s broader strategy.

This approach transforms the CEO from a problem-solver into a facilitator of strategic co-creation. By aligning leaders around shared goals and fostering a collaborative culture, the CEO ensures solutions are not only comprehensive but also sustainable in addressing complex, multi-dimensional challenges.

3. Growing Startups and Entrepreneurial Blind Spots

For younger entrepreneurs leading startups of about 20 to 30 people, decision-making dynamics are unique. These leaders often find themselves at the centre of every major decision, driven by their vision and enthusiasm. However, their limited experience combined with the rapid pace of growth can result in blind spots and gaps in judgment.

For instance, an entrepreneur might decide to hire aggressively to capitalize on growth opportunities without fully considering the strain it could place on operational processes, team cohesion, or company culture. Similarly, they might implement a new tool or process without recognizing how it might disrupt workflows or overwhelm their team.

In these cases, external advisors, mentors, or senior team members play a crucial role in helping the entrepreneur navigate these challenges effectively. They can:

• Help the entrepreneur anticipate downstream effects by encouraging them to think beyond immediate gains and consider long-term implications.
• Advocate for systems and processes to sustain growth, ensuring the organization scales without breaking under its own weight.
• Provide a sounding board to challenge and refine ideas, offering a critical perspective without undermining the entrepreneur's confidence.
• Encourage delegation and empowerment, helping the entrepreneur move from being a hands-on problem-solver to a strategic leader who trusts their team.
• Introduce the concept of organizational resilience, emphasizing the importance of adaptability in processes and decision-making to weather unexpected challenges.
• Help prioritize initiatives, ensuring limited resources (time, money, people) are allocated to the most impactful projects.
• Promote open communication across the team, encouraging transparency and collaboration as the organization grows.
• Identify cultural risks, such as burnout or misalignment, that can arise from rapid hiring or significant operational changes.

By providing this support, advisors and team members enable the entrepreneur to shift their mindset from reactive problem-solving to proactive leadership. This transition is essential for a startup to evolve into a stable, scalable, and resilient organization.

Conclusions

"Bring me the solution!" is a powerful and transformative mindset, but it is not a universal answer to every leadership challenge. The most effective leaders understand that their role is not just about demanding answers but about discerning when to guide, mentor, and collaborate. Striking this balance is key to fostering an environment where both people and the organization thrive.

Key takeaways for managers:

• Encourage proactive problem-solving while recognizing when team members lack the experience, maturity, or perspective to craft holistic solutions.
• Foster a culture of shared accountability, where solutions are cross-functional and aligned with organizational values and long-term goals.
• Balance short-term fixes with a long-term strategy, ensuring that immediate actions don’t compromise sustainability or growth.
• Empower teams to think critically and collaborate effectively, creating an environment where contributions from diverse perspectives enhance the quality of decisions.
• Develop leaders and their teams, equipping them with the skills and mindset to navigate complexity with confidence.

Ultimately, the art of leadership lies in knowing when to demand solutions and when to step back and create the space for co-creation. True leadership is not just about solving problems but about cultivating an organizational culture where challenges are seen as opportunities to innovate, align, and grow together.

The future you want to create is within your reach—take the first step today. I’m here to guide you through a conversation about your objectives. I invite you to reach out for a deeper discussion on how you can move from where you are to where you want to be. 

Until next time, keep thriving!

Alina Florea

Your Management Performance Coach

P.S. Your Year-End Review assessment is still waiting for you! Download the questionnaire today and take the first step toward a clearer, more focused 2025!  Completing it will give you a fresh perspective on the progress you want to achieve this year! Make your personal development a priority  - it's a commitment you owe to yourself and your growth!

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

The most appreciated articles of 2024:

1) This year I will ...

2) Steering through managerial undercurrents

3) A March for renewal

4) Engage responsibly with life

5) Simplify

How can I support you?

Growth Mindset for New Managers - Your online autonomy training is designed to catalyse your personal growth and ensure your fast transition to your first management role.

The Manager Mindset: One-on-one coaching designed to boost your performance and enhance your sense of fulfilment and satisfaction in life.

Master Your Resilience - Group coaching that helps you navigate life's challenges with greater ease and flow, empowering you to thrive through adversity.

Complimentary Strategy Call (FREE) - Let’s craft your personalized roadmap for transformation. Discover where coaching can take you in just 6 months with a free, strategic call to set your path toward success.

_SUMMARY

_{"Bring Me the Solution!" challenges a common leadership mantra by exploring its strengths and pitfalls. While it drives accountability and proactive problem-solving, blindly applying it can lead to siloed thinking and short-sighted decisions. What happens when solutions fail to address the bigger picture or align with organizational goals?}

_{This article reveals when leaders should demand solutions and when they must step in to guide, coach, or collaborate. Packed with real-world scenarios and practical insights, it will reshape how you approach leadership challenges. Ready to foster smarter, more holistic problem-solving in your team? Read the entire article. Share with me your experience of how you successfully used this mantra in your management role.}