How do you actually know when you’ve had an Aha! Leadership Moment?

For me it was walking away, shaking my head in awe at what just happened.  I was a recently-hired young supervisor in an information technology department, responsible for a team of ten programmers working on systems that automated a cereal plant.  For the life of me, I can’t remember the details of the problem that was weighing heavily on my shoulders but it most likely involved people, technology and project schedule issues and I was unable to think of possible options.

So I walked into my boss’s office with every intention of dumping it in his lap.  Mike was a quiet, older gentleman from an engineering and production background and, when nobody else wanted it, he had agreed to take on leadership of our technical department for the few years before his anticipated retirement.  He smiled a welcome when I asked if he had a minute, put away what he was working on and asked what was on my mind.

I sat down and explained that I had a problem and no idea what to do.   “Well, you know I don’t have an I.T. background like you do,” he said apologetically. “But why don’t you take me right back to the beginning and explain it to me in detail.  I might have to ask a lot of questions to really understand, so bear with me.”  He listened attentively while I rambled for the next twenty minutes describing everything I could think of about this problem and answering his questions.  Suddenly, to my complete amazement, I heard myself explaining what the options were and which one I thought was the right one.

He asked a few more questions and then said, “Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on what you think should be done.  What can I do to support you in making it happen?”   I thought for a moment and then said, “Teach me how you just did that – it’s exactly what I should be doing when my team bring me their problems!”  He laughed and said we should arrange to chat more often since there was much we should talk about.

It was an amazing revelation to me that as a leader, I really did not have to know everything.  When my team brought me problems, they were also bringing me the answers – they just didn’t know it.  What I had to learn was to stop jumping to giving solutions, but instead draw those solutions out with powerful questions from those who really knew.  It takes a lifetime to hone that skill, but to my way of thinking, it’s the true secret to leadership.

By Jill Pillon, Staff Writer to The Coaching Lens