Leader as Facilitator: Shifting from Problem-Solver to Solution Coordinator

There’s a special place in my heart for middle managers – they are THE essential “hub” of everything in your organization and yet, they’re treated like Rodney Dangerfield “I don’t get no respect.” Why is that?

They have tremendous potential for high impact in your organization but they face several challenges (which are not their fault):

1. They are stretched too thin as “working managers” with a portfolio of ‘deliverables’ on top of managing a team of people and a function within the organization.
2. They are not what we call “professional managers.” They have not been provided the learning, development and tools to professionally lead others.

We see it in just about every industry: a graphic designer becomes an art director, a land surveyor becomes a project manager, an architect becomes a partner. In their entry role, they do a standout job and are quickly promoted up the ranks, eventually finding themselves in management roles where they are expected to [intuitively] delegate work, communicate across teams, bring in business, and coach and mentor others.

Yet, without training or support they have to rely on instincts and often poor role models for how to manage and lead others. One example we see play out over and over is their reliance on their technical expertise to solve problems rather than engaging those closest to the problem in solving it. This comes out of a desire to have a positive impact but being the ‘heroic problem-solver’ for their team actually has a negative spiral effect on their organization that they don’t realize.

In our LEAP-Leadership Acceleration Program, our coaches teach them one of the simplest and highest-impact shifts they can make… Think of yourself as a FACILITATOR not a problem-solver. The very definition of facilitate is “to make easy” and the shift in mindset makes life easier for the middle manager as well as their direct-reports.

Learning how to facilitate does take a little practice but it’s a VERY learnable skill that nets quick returns. Here are some tips for making the shift from Problem-Solver to Solution Coordinator:

• Check Your Ego at the Door: It feels good to be the ‘hero’ who saves the day but good facilitators make the people around them feel like they did it w/out the help of the leader/facilitator. Let your people and their expertise shine. It’s okay to admit you don’t have all the answers and facilitate the process of finding solutions.

​

• Develop Your Ability to Ask Questions Rather than Offer Solutions: Step into a ‘curious but dumb’ mindset. Pretend you know nothing about the issue and have no judgment about it either. Tell your people that you believe they know more about the issue and how to solve it than you do and then ask questions such as “what is currently happening?”, “when did this start happening?”, “what will happen if it this continues?” “who else is impacted?”, “who else should we talk to?” “why do you think this is happening?”, “what are your ideas for fixing it?” and so on. There will come a point when you need to summarize what you have heard from the team and make a decision based on your authority but it will be a facilitated solution and likely a better solution than you would have developed on your own.

• Actively Involve Others: See above. Make it safe for people to offer their perspective and ideas. Ask them how they would solve this if they were ‘in-charge’ for the day?

• Manage Content and Process: a facilitative approach is concerned with both what the group is discussing or deciding and how they are actually doing it. They appreciate and understand that the team may need to use different processes to achieve different outcomes. Facilitative leaders work with the team to establish shared agreements for how participants will interact with each other and do their work – that is the group process aspect. Content is what the group is discussing or trying to achieve. Both are necessary and a good facilitator manages these rather than managing the problem solution itself.

Facilitation skills might just be the best kept leadership super-power and your middle managers the best way to create a strong, healthy organization. We’ve been developing leaders through an integrated methodology since 2002 and the notion of being a facilitative leader is by far one of the most powerful ‘ah-ha’ moments in their leadership journey and it’s a skill they leverage forevermore.

Professional literature often draws rigid lines between leadership and management, suggesting that one is right and one is wrong. In reality, we need individuals who both do the right thing and are capable of doing things right. We need middle-managers who can help individuals and groups do the right things right – the very nature of facilitative leadership.