Elizabeth Lotardo is a consultant, writer, and online instructor who helps organizations drive emotional engagement. Elizabeth writes for Harvard Business Review, is a Top Voice on LinkedIn, and the author of Leading Yourself: Find More Joy, Meaning, and Opportunities in the Job You Already Have. She’s also the author of the Harvard Business Review article, Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems for Them.

Jumping in to solve problems feels like we’re doing important work. The issue is that leaders need to be enabling work – both for scale and to grow the skills of others. In this conversation, Elizabeth and I detailed how to get out of the trap of solving your team’s problems for them.

• Jumping in to solve a problem feels good in the moment for both parties, but creates long-term obstacles.
• The other extreme, asking people to only come with solutions, often shuts down learning for both parties.
• Shifting a habit of solving your team’s problems will feel awkward at first – both for your team and you.
• Rather than solving the problem for them, help remove the obstacle.
• Support doesn’t just have to come from the manager. Often, looking at the situation together will help surface what kind of support would actually help.
• We often assume that people are coming to us for answers. Sometimes, they just need to be heard.

Five questions that will help your team step up:

1. What have you tried?
2. What–or who–is getting in the way of tackling this?
3. What support do you need?
4. What would you do if you were in my seat?
5. Is there anything else I should know?

• Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems for Them by Elizabeth Lotardo
• Leading Yourself: Find More Joy, Meaning, and Opportunities in the Job You Already Have by Elizabeth Lotardo (Amazon, Bookshop)*

• The Way to Stop Rescuing People From Their Problems, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 284)
• Where Senior Leaders Can Better Support Middle Managers, with Emily Field (episode 650)
• The Key Norm of a High-Performing Team, with Vanessa Druskat (episode 753)

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Colonel Eileen M. Collins, USAF (retired), earned a place in history as the first American woman to pilot, and later to command, a space mission. She flew on the space shuttle four times, twice as commander – including the 2005 “return to flight” mission after the tragic Columbia accident. She is the subject of the documentary movie Spacewoman and author of the book Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

We all have times in our careers where all eyes are on us. In this conversation, Eileen and I explore the critical moments of her career and how she stayed grounded while soaring among the stars.

• Until we are tested, we don’t know what we are capable of.
• Nerves creep in at times for all of us. When they do, it’s helpful to think about representing your role instead of representing yourself.
• When decisions become difficult, always come back to, “What’s the mission?”
• Train for the skill, not for the task.
• During high-stakes times, remember your family and personal life. They will help you stay grounded.

• Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission by Eileen Collins (Amazon, Bookshop)*
• Spacewoman documentary, featuring Eileen Collins

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

• How to Lead and Retain High Performers, with Ruth Gotian (episode 567)
• The Way to Handle Q&A, with Matt Abrahams (episode 681)
• How to Start the Top Job, with Scott Keller (episode 752)

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Claude Silver is on a mission to revolutionize leadership, talent, and workplace culture. She is Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX and partners with CEO Gary Vaynerchuk to drive their success. Claude has earned Campaign US’s Female Frontier Award, and AdWeek’s Changing the Game Award and she’s the author of Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

We’ve all heard the advice to be ourselves at work. It’s easier said than done. In this conversation, Claude and I explore how we can actually move past some of the unhelpful self-talk so that we can show up better, faster.

• We all have songs that play in our heads. When the song isn’t working, it’s time to change it.
• Labels are for soup cans, not people. Stop treating negative self-talk as gospel.
• Begin by identifying the label you’ve put on yourself that’s harming you. When it’s hard to see a harmful label, use times of either reflection or agitation to help surface it.
• Find the internal evidence for this label and record what confirms this belief and also what challenges it. If that’s hard, invite someone else (a partner, friend, or therapist) to help you see it more objectively.
• Evolve by creating a new mantra for who you are becoming. If it doesn’t seem doable today, ask yourself if you can envision it being true in the future.

• Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart by Claude Silver (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

• How to Tame Your Inner Critic, with Tara Mohr (episode 232)
• How to Stand Up for Yourself, with Sunita Sah (episode 715)
• When It Feels Like You Don’t Belong, with Muriel Wilkins (episode 756)

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Dave shares the results of the 2025 listener survey and previews what’s next for Coaching for Leaders. If you’re not already getting the weekly update and wish to receive Dave’s forthcoming FocusFive messages, join the free membership for access.

Steve Blank is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford and co-founder of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement and the curriculums for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps and Hacking for Defense and Diplomacy, he’s changed how startups are built, how entrepreneurship is taught, how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate. Steve is the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany and The Startup Owner’s Manual and is the author of his recent article at steveblank.com: Blind to Disruption: The CEOs Who Missed the Future.

Leaders may see the future coming, but we aren’t always incentivized to act on it. In this conversation, Steve and I discuss what we can learn from the common patterns of disruption so we don’t miss what’s next.

• In the 1890s, there were approximately 4,000 carriage and wagon makers in the United States. Only one company made the transition to automobiles.
• In each of the three companies that survived, it was the founders, not hired CEOs, that drove the transition.
• Studebaker recognized that it wasn’t in the business of carriages; it was in the business of mobility.
• Clayton Christensen taught us that disruption begins with inferior products that incumbents don’t take seriously.
• The real problem isn’t that companies can’t see the future. It’s that they are structurally disincentivized to act on it.
• Parsing innovation theatre vs. innovation means paying attention to what’s actually shipping. If nothing is and you want to innovate, look elsewhere.
• Bubbles in the market are normal. Timing may be off, but that doesn’t mean disruption isn’t happening.

• Blind to Disruption: The CEOs Who Missed the Future by Steve Blank

• How to Start Seeing Around Corners, with Rita McGrath (episode 430)
• How to Build an Invincible Company, with Alex Osterwalder (episode 470)
• How to Pivot Quickly, with Steve Blank (episode 476)

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Shannon Minifie is the CEO of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps unleash the power of curiosity to create connected and engaged company cultures. They are the organization behind the bestselling book The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. Shannon and her team recently released a report along with the Harris Poll titled Navigating a Fractured Workplace: How Relational Curiosity increases engagement, trust, and productivity.

Of course, you’ve heard that being curious and coach-like will help in leadership. But sometimes the very thing we think we’re doing well is actually getting in the way. In this conversation, Shannon and I explore the kind of curiosity that leaders often miss.

• 5-6 hours of the average workweek is lost to the fear of making mistakes.
• A strong majority of leaders say employees are expressing a desire for more feedback, and a majority also say that people are unable to receive hard feedback.
• Relationships are the core of these conflicting messages. Without a relationship of trust, helpful feedback often doesn’t land that way.
• Intellectual curiosity helps us learn what we don’t know. Relationship curiosity helps the other person learn what they don’t know.
• Ask yourself: what is my goal in asking this question?
• Rather than asking a question that starts with a “why,” consider asking a question that starts with a “what.”

The 7 Essential Questions:

1. What’s on your mind?
2. And what else?
3. What’s the real challenge here for you?
4. What do you want?
5. How can I help?
6. If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
7. What was most useful for you?

• Navigating a Fractured Workplace: How Relational Curiosity Increases Engagement, Trust, and Productivity.
• Interactive Learning Preview: Invest in the Power of Curiosity
• The Coaching Habit* by Michael Bungay Stanier

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

• These Coaching Questions Get Results, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 237)
• How to Ask Better Questions, with David Marquet (episode 454)
• The Way to Be More Coach-Like, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 458)

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.