Intentional Growth vs. Problem Solving

It’s tough being a leader! Of course you have to manage the work, to make sure all the trains are running on time and stuff is getting done. That’s a given. On top of that, you have to take care of your team and make sure they’re healthy and happy, productive, motivated, etc. Then, there’s managing laterally and upwards. You have to make sure the boss–or bosses–are happy and work with your other managerial colleagues in other departments to provide and obtain the necessary support. And, of course, there is managing customer relations and expectations.

Bear in mind that I just wrote this list off the top of my head. It’s almost certainly incomplete.

But there is one more wild card in the mix that I want to draw your attention to: problems.

Problem Solving

Nobody who has ever led anything would dispute that solving problems is one of the biggest responsibilities of a leader. And any leader worth her salt is resourceful in figuring out ways to solve problems on an ad hoc basis. When you bump up against an obstacle, you put on your thinking cap (i.e., do a Google search) and figure out how to solve it. Then, you can get back to your “regular” work. And that’s fine. No problem.

So, what does this have to do with personal growth? I think the answer relates to efficiency.

Backing up to the ad hoc problem solving we just discussed and that all of us do, if we only equip ourselves in the moment to solve an immediate problem, we set ourselves up for rework the next time we encounter that problem. We have to go back through the motions and figure it out again.

(Now, admittedly, this is an oversimplified example. We know that we “accidentally” learn and retain some things by simple experience. But bear with me as I make my point.)

Intentional Growth

Contrast this with a situation in which we solved a problem and intentionally tagged the problem-solution pairing and intentionally added it to our leadership toolbox so we can pull it back out next time we encounter that problem. That would be a lot more efficient, right?

Now, let’s take it a step further. What if we were intentional and proactive about learning problem-solution pairings we haven’t yet encountered? Wouldn’t that take our efficiency as leaders to a whole new level? Here we are, rocking along doing our leader/manager thing, when–WHAM!–a problem we’ve never seen before strikes! If we’ve been intentional about growing our leadership chops, it’s likely we already have the necessary tools to deal with the new problem immediately!

But it’s even bigger than that. Intentional growth not only equips us for more efficient problem-solving, it also helps us get better at all the “regular” leader things we do every day. So we cause fewer problems we have to then turn around and solve. (And let’s face it, we all cause problems for our own selves, don’t we?)

As the caring, responsible leader I know you are, I encourage you to be intentional about incorporating consistent, deliberate, meaningful growth efforts into your schedule. There are numerous ways to do it–newsletters, blogs, podcasts, TED talks, on and on. Find something that works for you and go for it! And please let me know what you learn. I need some more tools in my toolbox too!