I play pickleball on Wednesday nights with a group of guys. Somewhere along the way, it turned into a bit of an addiction. I tell myself it’s a healthy one, and most of the time, I believe that.
One night, four of us showed up, and we split into teams. It didn’t take long for me to realize something was off. My partner was struggling. (Even more than usual.)
He was making mistakes. He was missing simple plays. Simply put, he stunk! We lost every match we played.
I’ll be honest. I was frustrated.
In my mind, the problem was obvious. He just wasn’t playing well. Clearly, it was a skill issue.
After we finished playing, we were standing in the parking lot talking, and my partner said, “Man, I had the worst day at work today.”
That stopped me.
My first thought (which I’m proud to say I kept to myself) was, “It would have been helpful to know that before we picked teams!” But right behind that thought was something more important.
I had completely misread the situation.
What I thought was a performance issue had nothing to do with pickleball at all. It had everything to do with what happened earlier that day. He wasn’t distracted because he didn’t care. He was distracted because he was carrying something with him onto the court.
I had been trying to solve the wrong problem. And once I saw the real problem, my personal frustration lifted, and I shifted my focus to helping my friend by listening.
Solving the wrong problem happens in leadership more often than we realize.
As leaders, we are constantly evaluating what we see. Someone is underperforming. A project is off track. A team member seems disengaged. The behavior is real, so we move quickly to identify solutions and address it. We adjust roles. We give feedback. We try to fix what is right in front of us. But what we see is not always the full story.
Behavior is often a symptom. There is usually something underneath it, something we cannot see at first glance. It could be stress. It could be confusion. It could be something happening outside of work that is affecting everything inside of it. When we assume we understand the problem too quickly, we risk solving the wrong thing.
Good leaders learn to pause before they react. They ask better questions. They pay attention to what might be happening beneath the surface. They recognize that people do not operate in neat categories. People do not leave their lives at the door when they show up to work. What they are carrying, good or bad, shows up in every conversation, every meeting, and every decision they make.
This month, we are talking about the problem behind the problem. Leadership is not just about responding to surface-level observations and assumptions. It is about taking the time to understand what is actually driving behavior and decision-making. When we do that well, we don’t just fix problems. We help people.
Tom
#leadershipdevelopment #leader #listening