As a leader, you are confronted with a repetitive question: « what are my success factors »? And if, by accident, you lost sight of it, others would be « delighted » to remind you of it.

Next to generating performance (profit, marketshare, meeting deadlines, generating quality, turnover…), creating and maintaining a positive climate (drive, morale, motivation, self-confidence…), carrying out technological and competitive watchfulness, there is a major although too often overlooked or even forgotten indicator: how do I ensure the success of my team members?

According to experts like K. Blanchard, D. Goleman and other internationally renowned opinions leaders, and according to common sense, the success of a leader is strongly depending on the success of his/her team members.

So, as a leader, you’ll be successful when all your team members will succeed! In other words, your credibility is highly depending on your ability and will to develop them in terms of expertise and autonomy to such an extend that you could say: « what happens in my team when I’m not present is even more important than what happens when I’m present ».

Depending on the tasks and the objective set for each task, you’ll be confronted with more or less enthusiastic people with more or less expertise, sometimes, even disappointed or fired-up people with more or less expertise. Needless to say they’ll run into challenges and will have to overcome difficulties.

The way you handle people confronted with challenges and difficulties will greatly influence their success and as a consequence, yours.

The way you react to words like difficulty, challenge or even problem will impact positively or negatively competencies, motivation, self confidence and good will.

Telling beginners they have to come and propose solutions will sound like a « mission impossible » to them. It will not help them build up skills and confidence.

Telling experts they have to come and propose solutions is useless. They don’t need you for that.

Telling people with a certain level of expertise they have to come and propose solutions will result in various situations in function of their level of motivation and self-confidence.

So, who do you think you’ll help by telling people they need to come to you with solutions, not with problems?