The Set-Up
When Maria Santiago stepped into her new team-lead role, her old success formula—see problem, fix problem—followed her. Within weeks teammates stopped offering ideas and began handing work back to “the boss who always gets it right.” Maria’s evenings disappeared into rewrite after rewrite, and two engineers quietly updated their résumés.
A Different Kind of Challenge
In our first coaching session I proposed a 60-day experiment:
- Pause. When someone brought a problem, count to three before speaking.
- Invite Ownership. Ask, “What two ways could we handle this, and which feels stronger to you?”
- Explore Thinking. If she disliked the recommendation, walk through the logic together and nudge, don’t dictate.
Maria worried it would slow delivery. I framed it as an experiment—time-boxed, measurable, and therefore safe to try.
Week-by-Week Story of Change
- Week 1: The very first “pause” felt awkward. An engineer presenting a mangled API call stared back, then cautiously sketched two fixes. Ten minutes later they’d chosen one together—and Maria hadn’t written a single line of code.
- Week 2: Help-me pings dipped only slightly (about fifteen to twelve), yet Maria noticed the conversations were shorter and more thoughtful. She began tracking each interaction in a notebook titled “Evidence the Team Can.”
- Week 4: Mid-experiment check-in. Help requests hovered around eight per week, down almost half. Maria reclaimed three hours for roadmap planning. More telling: people arrived with white-board diagrams, not just questions. One designer even prefaced, “I brought two paths—pick them apart!”
- Week 6: Maria caught herself smiling in a sprint review. Team members debated trade-offs with each other before looking her way. Her stress rating (self-scored nightly) had fallen from 8½ to 5.
- Week 8: The notebook showed an average of three help-requests a week, each paired with solid recommendations. HR’s “flight-risk” report flagged zero red names on Maria’s team for the first time in a year. Engagement-pulse comments mentioned “space to think” and “feeling trusted.” Maria now spent six to seven hours weekly on the strategic pricing initiative that had been gathering dust.
What Made the Difference?
- Every rescue trains dependence. Maria’s micro-pauses broke that reflex.
- Autonomy fires up the brain’s reward circuitry. Asking for options shifted teammates from threat to creativity.
- Framing as a game lowers resistance. A 60-day “challenge” felt doable—and generated data she could believe.
- Celebrate the process, not just the answer. Maria publicly praised well-reasoned proposals, even when tweaks were needed.
Two-Month Outcomes
- Help-requests: ~15 → 12 → 8 → 3 per week
- Leader stress (1-10): 8.5 → 5
- Strategic-focus hours: <2 → ~6 per week
- Attrition risk: from “two likely departures” to “stable—no red flags”
Reflection for Readers
- Where might your well-intended heroics be stunting growth around you?
- In your next problem conversation, could you try the “Rule of Two” solutions?
- What short, data-driven experiment would give you proof—one way or another—that leading through questions can create clarity, momentum, and an ownership culture?
Maria’s story shows that in just eight weeks a leader can trade the thrill of saving the day for the deeper satisfaction of watching a whole team rise.
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