764: Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems, with Elizabeth Lotardo

Compassionate leadership can become a liability when leaders jump in too much to solve their team's problems. Elizabeth Lotardo, consultant and author of a Harvard Business Review article on the topic, joins Dave Stachowiak to discuss balancing compassion with empowering employees. Over-indexing on compassion can lead to burnout for leaders and disempowerment for team members. Lotardo shares five key questions leaders can use to help employees develop problem-solving skills, including "What have you tried?" and "What support do you need?". These questions aim to shift the dynamic toward joint action and remove the burden of problem-solving from the leader's shoulders, fostering a culture of independent problem-solving and growth.