Do you feel like a lot of your time is wasted hearing people complain about what is going on in the team?
There are many reasons that people may be coming to you. They may be avoiding responsibility, seeking validation, trying to gain an advantage, or dealing with someone who is genuinely behaving badly.
But sometimes leaders unintentionally perpetuate the very dependency they’re frustrated by. When we don’t give people what they need to handle those problems without us, we can actually train them to depend on us.
If we want people to collaborate effectively without constantly involving us, we need to give them what they need to succeed together.
Here are four “passes” that might be missing:
- Clarity
One of the things I frequently discover when working with leadership teams is that people aren’t always clear about what they’re responsible for resolving together.
When there is even the slightest confusion, people may not know what they’re expected to resolve themselves, how to handle disagreements, or even which priorities should guide their decisions.
What is obvious to you is not obvious to others.
This means creating a set of agreed upon team norms that guide team behaviors.
It also means setting clear, shared objectives and priorities the team is working to accomplish together. Otherwise, you may have unintentionally set yourself up as the referee between competing individual priorities. After all, if team members aren’t working toward a common objective together, what incentive do they have to work through their differences?
- Directness
Sometimes we allow people to bring us problems they should be addressing with each other.
And it requires us to be direct and express that this is their responsibility to work it out, not yours.
Sometimes directness comes in the form of a statement: “This is something the two of you need to work through directly.”
Sometimes it comes in the form a question to reframe their thinking: “How are you thinking about approaching that conversation?”
Sometimes it’s both.
- Confidence
Sometimes team members don’t believe they can navigate a difficult conversation successfully. And if we keep bailing them out, they’ll never believe it.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is let people experience the discomfort of working through a challenging situation themselves, while reminding them that we believe they can do it.
One way to instill confidence is to tell people what you see in them. For example: “You have the skills to do this. I’ve seen them. You’ve got this.”
- Presence
Sometimes we become referees because we’re too quick to solve problems before we’ve understood what’s actually happening.
For example, someone complains about a colleague and the leader immediately offers a solution or intervenes.
But perhaps the person doesn’t need intervention. They need to be heard, understood, and helped to think through the next step.
That means giving them your undivided attention to really understand what it is they are trying to tell you and what they really need.
Presence doesn’t mean taking ownership of their problem.
The next time someone comes to you complaining about a colleague, resist the temptation to immediately put on your referee shirt.
Instead, ask yourself: What does this person need from me so they can move forward without me?
Maybe it’s clarity, directness, confidence, or your full attention.
None of these means that there are not times when the team genuinely needs you to step in.
But your goal isn’t to become a better referee. It’s to build a team that doesn’t need one nearly as often.
