764: Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems, with Elizabeth Lotardo
Coaching for Leaders
Dave Stachowiak
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Elizabeth Lotardo: Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems for Them
Elizabeth Lotardo is a consultant, writer, and online instructor who helps organizations drive emotional engagement. Elizabeth writes for Harvard Business Review, is a Top Voice on LinkedIn, and the author of Leading Yourself: Find More Joy, Meaning, and Opportunities in the Job You Already Have. She’s also the author of the Harvard Business Review article, Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems for Them.
Jumping in to solve problems feels like we’re doing important work. The issue is that leaders need to be enabling work – both for scale and to grow the skills of others. In this conversation, Elizabeth and I detailed how to get out of the trap of solving your team’s problems for them.
Key Points
- Jumping in to solve a problem feels good in the moment for both parties, but creates long-term obstacles.
- The other extreme, asking people to only come with solutions, often shuts down learning for both parties.
- Shifting a habit of solving your team’s problems will feel awkward at first – both for your team and you.
- Rather than solving the problem for them, help remove the obstacle.
- Support doesn’t just have to come from the manager. Often, looking at the situation together will help surface what kind of support would actually help.
- We often assume that people are coming to us for answers. Sometimes, they just need to be heard.
Five questions that will help your team step up:
- What have you tried?
- What–or who–is getting in the way of tackling this?
- What support do you need?
- What would you do if you were in my seat?
- Is there anything else I should know?
Resources Mentioned
- Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems for Them by Elizabeth Lotardo
- Leading Yourself: Find More Joy, Meaning, and Opportunities in the Job You Already Have by Elizabeth Lotardo (Amazon, Bookshop)*
Related Episodes
- The Way to Stop Rescuing People From Their Problems, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 284)
- Where Senior Leaders Can Better Support Middle Managers, with Emily Field (episode 650)
- The Key Norm of a High-Performing Team, with Vanessa Druskat (episode 753)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Jumping into solve problems feels like we're doing important work. |
| 0:04.4 | The issue is that leaders need to be enabling work, both for scale and to grow the skills of others. |
| 0:12.3 | In this episode, how to get out of the trap of solving your team's problems for them. |
| 0:18.9 | This is Coaching for Leaders, Episode 7664. |
| 0:23.5 | Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential. |
| 0:31.9 | Greetings to you from Orange County, California. |
| 0:35.3 | This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahoviac. |
| 0:40.0 | Leaders aren't born. They're made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom |
| 0:45.2 | through insightful conversations. I have had the privilege for so many years of talking to so many |
| 0:52.0 | of our members and listeners who are part of our community. |
| 0:56.0 | And one of the words that comes up regularly in my thinking about our audience is compassionate, |
| 1:03.0 | how compassionate that people are in their work as human beings, but also, of course, |
| 1:08.3 | with their teams and in supporting others. And it is a wonderful |
| 1:12.2 | strength to have as a leader. And like any strength, if we over index on it, it can become a |
| 1:17.7 | liability for us. And one of the ways that it can sometimes become a bit of a liability is we |
| 1:23.1 | jump in too much to help. Today, a conversation on how we can balance the compassion |
| 1:28.9 | that we all have and to do it in a way that actually is compassionate and kind and helps |
| 1:33.8 | people to grow. I am so pleased to welcome Elizabeth Lottardo to the show. She is a consultant, |
| 1:39.3 | writer, and online instructor who helps organizations drive emotional engagement. Elizabeth writes for Harvard |
| 1:45.7 | Business Review is a top voice on LinkedIn and the author of Leading Yourself, Find More Joy, |
| 1:52.7 | Meaning, and Opportunities in the Job You Already Have. She's also the author of the Harvard |
| 1:58.5 | Business Review article, Stop Solving Your Team's Problems for |
... |
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