You’re Not Stuck. You’re Solving the Wrong Problem.
If your team seems stuck right now and everything still ends up coming back to you, it’s tempting to assume you need to push harder.
More clarity.
More direction.
More follow-up.
But what if the problem isn’t effort? What if you’re solving the wrong problem entirely? Most high-capacity leaders I work with don’t have a motivation problem.
They’re not disengaged. They’re not unclear about what they want to achieve.
They’re doing a lot.
And still not getting the results they expect from their team. So they do what’s worked before:
They step in.
They tighten things up.
They push a little harder.
And over time, something subtle starts to happen: Everything begins to depend on them. This is where most leaders misdiagnose the problem. It looks like an execution issue.
Deadlines are missed.
Work gets redone.
Progress feels slower than it should.
So the assumption is: “My team needs to execute better.” But when you look closer, that’s rarely the root issue. More often, the real problem is this:
There’s no shared clarity about what matters most.
Too many priorities.
Competing expectations.
Unspoken assumptions.
And no amount of effort fixes that. When I hear from leaders, “My team keeps missing deadlines,” the first belief is that it’s a performance problem, and it could be.
But as we dig deeper, we often realize:
Priorities were shifting week to week
No one could clearly articulate what “done” meant
There was no clear point person accountable for completion
The team was optimizing for different outcomes
The issue wasn’t execution. It was clarity. And until that was addressed, nothing changed.
So instead of asking: “How do I get my team to do more?”
Ask: “Where are we actually stuck?”
And then: “Why?”
Here are three places I start:
Should we be doing more or less?
Are we missing data or avoiding a decision?
Do we actually have the right resources and systems in place?
You don’t need to fix everything. You need to identify the one thing that’s creating the most friction.
And then there’s one question most leaders skip. And it matters more than all the others: Do I actually want to solve this problem?
Because sometimes the issue isn’t capability. It’s alignment. You might have taken your team as far as you can. And the next step requires a different kind of leadership.
If you still believe in the work, you can grow into that. If you don’t, the most honest move might be to step aside. Either way, the next step requires courage.
If your team feels stuck, don’t start by doing more. Start by getting honest about what’s actually in the way. Because when you solve the right problem, everything else starts to move.
Here’s my step-by-step guide to discover how to solve for your team’s primary issues right now:
