In the rush to resolve issues, many leaders move too quickly toward fixing a problem before they fully understand it. But clarity comes before resolution. In a recent coaching conversation, I asked a client what his goal was going into a difficult meeting. His answer: “To fix the problem.” Reasonable? Absolutely. But in this case, the deeper need was to understand the person involved.
One partner in a leadership trio had been drifting — emotionally, professionally, energetically. Her teammates were interpreting her actions as disengagement or defensiveness. But when we slowed down and asked, “Why might she be acting this way?” we saw something deeper: this was someone carrying the weight of the world, convinced that mistakes equaled failure. Her behavior wasn’t apathy. It was fear. Vulnerability. Exhaustion.
The Heath brothers, in their book Switch, talk about how resistance is often misunderstood. What looks like defiance might actually be confusion. What looks like laziness might be exhaustion. That was the case here. We had to reframe the objective of the meeting — not to fix her, but to understand her. That changed everything.
I shared something personal with the client’s team: “I’m one of those people.” I can do a thousand things right, but the ten things I do wrong? Those haunt me. I know what it’s like to shoulder the responsibility of other people’s mistakes — to feel like the buck stops with you even when you’re not the expert in the room.
Understanding that her reaction stemmed from a belief that she’s not allowed to make mistakes helped shift the conversation. It wasn’t about defensiveness or attitude. It was about permission to be human.
Fixing a problem is easier when you understand it. Sometimes, there’s nothing to fix — only something to name, acknowledge, or support. Great leadership starts with curiosity. Start your next conversation by asking: what am I really seeing here?
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
