As the founder, I have a habit of stepping in and solving every problem during meetings. How do you manage my dominant presence during our session days so that my leadership team actually learns to solve their own issues?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is one of the most critical dynamics we manage on session days. As a strong willed Visionary or founder, your natural instinct is to dominate the room, solve every issue, and jump to conclusions before your team has a chance to speak. While this drive built the company, it now prevents your leaders from growing. During our sessions, I will actively manage your participation to prevent you from drowning out other voices. We use the Kolb experiential learning cycle to help your team grow. They need to experience the challenge of solving problems themselves, reflect on the results, and build their own operational confidence. I will often ask you to speak last during critical debates or sit back and observe while your team wrestles with an issue. We also use the tools of the IDS® process to force a structured, democratic approach to problem solving. Every member of the leadership team gets an equal voice in defining and solving issues. By stepping back during our sessions, you allow your team to truly step up. They start taking ownership of the solutions, which means they will work twice as hard to execute them when they return to their daily roles.