“The day people stop bringing you problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They’ve either lost confidence that you can help them or have concluded that you don’t care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
– Colin Powell
There is (rightly) a great deal of talk about psychological safety, on LinkedIn.
Creating the environment where all are comfortable to ask for help, disagree or suggest alternative views is the role of all leaders.
But there is still a view from some areas of leadership that you should “bring me solutions; not problems.”
This is often framed as “I trust you to fix it. Just tell me when you have.”
It might sound noble and empowering. But it can easily be the opposite of psychological safety.
People highlight problems for many reasons – and it’s not always to ask for advice in how to remedy them.
Creating the conditions where this can’t be done – regardless of the reason – can be devastating to the culture.
It can be percieved as easier or less threatening to simply tolerate problems, rather than be forced into a position where you need to remedy them before your can report.
If we’re serious about creating spaces where all can contribute, then this cannot come with stipends and restrictions wrapped in “I trust you to get it sorted” paper.
Let people raise issues.
If they also have a solution, fabulous.
But, if not, work as a team – without blame – to find the remedy together.
