Good leaders sometimes attract more complaints.
When team members feel empowered, trusted, and safe, they speak up more freely.
It’s not that members of empowered teams are unhappier; it’s just that they feel more comfortable voicing their views. And they often do.
Team members complain to register their minor dissatisfactions and to push leaders to make changes they view as common sense. Good leaders would never reject those complaints or suggest that they are uninterested in learning how team members see things.
At the same time, the more they listen to complaints, the more they end up encouraging everyone to raise them.
To make sure team members feel strongly about what they advocate for and to reduce the number of unnecessary complaints they hear, good leaders insist on a simple rule: They require team members to offer a solution after raising any complaint.
When team members can’t or refuse to offer a remedy, strategy, or solution, the leader makes clear that they are unprepared to complain and that they need to think through the problem more deeply next time.
Here’s how. Instead of telling team members not to bring problems without solutions, good leaders listen and then ask the team member what they believe can be done about it.
If they are unprepared to discuss a solution, leaders can encourage them to think through the options and make a proposal. They can then ask them to return to discuss the problem once they have done their homework.
Leaders who follow this rule not only receive fewer complaints that waste their time but also help team members to shift their mindset from problem-focused to solution-focused.
Complaints followed by solutions encourage critical and strategic thinking and build real ownership over the issues.
By asking team members to replace their venting with a “diagnosis and propose” mentality, leaders move people from observer to contributor and from victim to advocate.
Of course, some complaints disappear when a team member must think through a solution, usually because the issue is more emotional than substantive. This is the ideal outcome as long as the practice doesn’t silence legitimate concerns.
The key is to establish a consistent norm surrounding complaints and solutions. This way, team members don’t feel dismissed or fearful about raising issues. They simply learn that they must be thoughtful and strategic before elevating concerns.
Good leaders insist that team members “own the fix” of any problem they raise by showing them how. With modest repetition, this cuts down on repetitive venting that wastes everyone’s time.
Teams need more thinkers, not more bystanders.
