The Problem Isn't Always the Problem
One of the most common mistakes I see leaders make is trying to solve the wrong problem.
Not because they're bad leaders.
Not because they don't care.
But because the problem they can see isn't always the problem that's actually causing the issue.
We all do it.
A team isn't collaborating.
Someone's performance isn't where it should be.
People aren't taking ownership.
Projects keep stalling.
Communication feels poor.
The symptom is obvious.
The root cause often isn't.
And when we focus all our effort on treating symptoms, we can spend months fixing nothing at all.
Looking Beyond What's Visible
A lot of the work I'm doing with businesses at the moment starts with a leadership challenge that sounds something like:
"Our teams aren't collaborating."
"Our managers aren't leading consistently."
"People aren't taking enough ownership."
The instinct is often to focus on the people closest to the problem.
Let's train the teams.
Let's improve communication.
Let's create new processes.
Let's introduce more meetings.
Sometimes those things help.
But often, when we dig deeper, the real issue sits elsewhere.
One pattern I see repeatedly is a lack of alignment at senior leadership level.
The board and executive team may not have a shared understanding of what good leadership looks like.
Different leaders send different messages.
Expectations vary across departments.
Managers receive inconsistent guidance.
Teams experience completely different cultures depending on who they report to.
Eventually the symptoms show up as poor collaboration, frustration and silos.
The visible problem is between teams.
The root cause is often much higher up the organisation.
The Same Thing Happens With Individuals
I see exactly the same pattern when leaders are dealing with individual team members.
One participant on The Leader was struggling with a team member whose work quality wasn't where it needed to be.
Tasks were taking longer than expected.
Output wasn't meeting the same standard as colleagues.
The obvious explanations started to appear:
Maybe they're not capable.
Maybe they're not motivated.
Maybe they're not right for the role.
Those explanations are tempting because they're simple.
But they're also dangerous.
Because once we've decided we know the cause, we stop being curious.
Instead of jumping straight to conclusions, this leader took a different approach.
Through coaching conversations and genuine curiosity, they explored what might be sitting underneath the behaviour.
The root cause turned out to be that the individual was neurodivergent and needed a few relatively simple adjustments to the way they worked.
The impact was incredible.
Someone who had been viewed as a poor performer became one of the strongest contributors in the team.
The capability had always been there.
The leader simply discovered what was getting in the way.
Why Leaders Miss Root Causes
Most leaders aren't intentionally ignoring root causes.
The reality is that we're busy.
We operate under pressure.
We want solutions.
When something isn't working, our brains naturally move towards fixing it as quickly as possible.
The challenge is that speed and curiosity don't always work well together.
Curiosity requires us to pause.
To ask questions.
To gather information.
To be willing to discover that our first assumption might be wrong.
And that's uncomfortable.
Particularly for experienced leaders who are used to solving problems quickly.
The Cost of Solving the Wrong Problem
When leaders focus on symptoms rather than causes, several things happen.
People get labelled.
Processes become more complicated.
Frustration increases.
Trust decreases.
And the original issue often remains exactly where it was.
The team member who seems disengaged may actually lack confidence.
The manager who appears resistant may not understand what's expected of them.
The team that isn't collaborating may be responding to conflicting priorities.
The employee who isn't performing may need support rather than criticism.
When we misdiagnose the problem, we often create new problems in the process.
Three Questions That Can Change Everything
The next time you're facing a leadership challenge, try asking yourself:
What am I observing?
Focus on facts rather than assumptions.
What can you actually see happening?
What assumptions am I making about the cause?
Notice where you've filled in gaps with your own interpretation.
What else could be true?
This question alone can unlock entirely new possibilities.
It creates space for curiosity.
And curiosity is often where better leadership begins.
Great Leaders Stay Curious
One of the biggest shifts I see in exceptional leaders is that they resist the temptation to jump straight to answers.
They remain curious for longer.
They seek understanding before action.
They recognise that behaviour is usually the result of something deeper.
And they know that the visible problem is often only part of the story.
The next time something in your team isn't working as you'd like, pause before rushing to solve it. Ask yourself:
Am I looking at the problem?
Or am I looking at a symptom of something else?
Because sometimes the biggest breakthroughs happen when we stop asking how to solve a problem and start asking what's really causing it.
