Being a leader is about living your life in a way that inspires or encourages others. To lead is to serve. If you make it your goal to do the best that you can and to help people, then you can't fail. I encourage you to commit to keep learning.

This is newsletter #23 in the series. If you have missed prior newsletters, and are enjoying the series, we encourage you to take advantage of the discount offer for Mike's Leadership and Life Skills Program. Click on the coupon at the bottom of this page.

Problems are encountered every day—at home, at work, with our families, and with our friends and associates. We spend a tremendous amount of time and energy trying to solve them.

The key to being effective in solving our problems is to:

1. Identify the problem.
2. Gather facts.
3. Identify all possible solutions.
4. Evaluate the effectiveness of all solutions.
5. Make the best decision possible at that time.
   
6. Analyze whether it impacts anything else in the company or your life that may need to be adjusted to avoid this problem in the future.
7. Learn from the process and you’ll become a better problem solver.
   

It’s impossible to anticipate every possible problem, even with the most careful planning. You can’t accurately predict long-range weather, sickness, or business conditions that might have an effect on whether or not you have a job. So, when a problem shows up, make sure you understand the facts in order to deal with it directly. Dealing with the side effects or secondary impacts won’t remove it.

Some companies use meetings to solve problems that happen in the workplace, but quite often they’re not the most effective venues for doing so. Very often meetings end up being attempts to assign blame. Participants take turns pointing fingers at someone else because they’re focusing on the details of the problem. One way to make problem-solving more effective during meetings is to begin by discussing the meeting’s purpose and to ask everyone to focus on solutions rather than the assignment of blame.

Encourage the people around you to think through a problem before bringing it to you to solve for them. Let them formulate a few of their own solutions that they can present to you as options. You might choose one of them, which will validate their efforts. On the other hand, you might have one of your own that’s better, in which case use that as a learning tool for the person so that they can broaden their perspective and do better the next time. I use that technique with my employees and it seems to work very well for two reasons. Firstly, it reduces my problem-solving responsibilities, and secondly, they get exposure to the process of problem-solving, and develop a greater confidence in their own abilities to solve problems. I tell them—“Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions! I have more than enough problems—what I need are solutions for the ones I already have!”

Effective problem solving is a critical component of effective leadership. Make it a practice to pay close attention to how others solve problems and be open to what’s being said and done.

What's almost more important than solving a particular problem, is understanding why the problem occurred in the first place, and creating a system so that it doesn't occur again. If you get in the habit of looking into the reasons the problems occurred you can use them as a building block to improve. If there were no problems, failures, or shortcomings in technology, some of the greatest innovations might never have happened. In many situations, creativity is a response to a problem.

The above content is extracted from Mike Holt's Leadership Skills textbook.