635 | Lead Like a Coach, Not a Firefighter

If your calendar feels like a crisis hotline and your team can't seem to move without you, this episode is for you.

Today we are breaking down the mindset shift from reactive firefighting to intentional coaching and how to finally lead without burning out. All of that is coming up.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day. Wherever you are. Today, we're talking about something where we've all been there.

Your day starts with a plan, and five minutes later, it's hijacked by someone else's emergency. Right.

One issue turns into five, and by the time you come up for air, you're exhausted. You're wondering what you've accomplished. Your spouse asks you what you did today, and you're like, I don't know, but I know it was a lot.

Well, that's what we call firefighting leadership, and here's the truth. It's not your job to solve every problem. Let me say that again. It is not your job to solve every problem. Your job is to build people who can solve problems.

In today's episode, we're going to help you shift from reactionary leadership to intentional coaching so that you can build a team that runs with clarity, not chaos.

And I can tell you, as somebody who's been doing this for decades, the, the, the time frame that I started making that shift and realizing that if I could train people up and coach them up, I could do more important things that I should be focused on, right?

But I would be less of the bottleneck. I would be less of the person solving everything. That was massive for me, and it did come with a lot.

A lot of work. So as we go through this, there's a lot of stuff you've got to do. But our business operates as a teaching environment. It is not uncommon for somebody to have a problem or something going on that they are coached through.

Through it, because we have time to. We have time to coach them. Now, was it always that way in the beginning phases? It was a little crazy.

You know, when I first started doing this 30 years ago, I had to find time. I had to. I had to create time on my calendar to intentionally coach. Nowadays, it happens all the time. It just happens naturally.

Well, I should say, you know, we've got a crazy solid team that's been with us for years and years. And so it's not a ton of coaching that goes on.

It's here and there, but we've always had time to do it.

Firefighting Feels Productive—But It’s Short-Term (00:02:56)

So let's get into the first key point and that is that firefighting feels productive. But it's short term, folks. I know, I get it, I understand. It's crazy when you jump into fixed problems, it kind of gives us immediate sense of usefulness. Right?

But it's creating this dependency instead of a capability. So you're trading, you know, short term relief for long term dysfunction.

And the craziest part about it, we all experience it. It's this, I'm busy, I'm doing stuff, I'm solving problems. This stuff needs to get done. I have to handle this. And what we're missing is.

And while we're in that moment and it feels like we're being super productive and it feels like, well, we are doing what needs to get done, this seems to be the most important thing at the time. What we're missing is the bigger things we should be focused on.

If instead of firefighting and what that means, what I mean by that is instead of a fire comes up, there's an emergency, there's an urgency to something, and it's all hands on deck, jump in and solve the problem.

Because somehow on the front side, and I'm not saying this is 100% of the time, but most of the time we either didn't do something right on the front side, or there was an expectation that got missed, or something came up that we never even thought of.

And on top of that, the person who's handling it doesn't know how to handle it, or we're concerned that they're going to mess things up.

Whatever it is, any combination of any of that. Right. Creates this process of firefighting. Why is that a bad thing?

Because firefighting means that you are consistently going around putting out fires that one, should not have happened in the first place, and two, if it should have happened because it was something well beyond us.

Then the person who's handling it should be able to handle it right?

Or we should be able to coach them up on how to handle it so that they can learn how to put out fires on their own. More importantly, they can learn how to make sure fires don't happen.

If you've been with me for a long enough time, you've probably heard me talk about how, you know, I used to have, I used to hire, geez, 20, 20 years ago, maybe, gosh, longer, probably about 20 years ago, I would hire event coordinators.

We're doing these huge 10,000 person events and all this kind of stuff and, you know, hire people. I'd go through the interview process and it was surprising to me when somebody would come in and be like, man, I'm amazing at putting out fires.

I'm the person day of when things go wrong, I'm able to go put things out and solve things and all this kind of stuff. I would very quickly be done with the interview.

I had one gal that was interviewing with me and I'm like, okay, thanks. Well, this isn't going to work out for me. And she was like, whoa, whoa, what's the matter?

And I'm like, I don't need a firefighter. I don't need somebody who's great at putting out fires day of. I need somebody. Which by the way, that is really pointing to you as being the amazing person.

I need somebody that nobody really knows exists because they did such a phenomenal job for four to six months before we ever got to that event that there aren't fires.

And she just couldn't get it. She was looking at me like, but that's crazy. Fires are going to happen. And I'm like, well, with us, we go around the country doing these huge events and we get maybe a fire a season, maybe because we have a solid team that kills it.

And so it was very difficult for that person to understand. I don't want a hero.

For me, the right person for the job is the person who has done everything to the best of their abilities because they've been coached up and trained up and they know exactly what to do.

And I had, you know, a leader over all of the event coordinators, and I had trained event coordinators from the past and so on and so forth.

They've been trained so well that fires don't happen right now. Is there going to be the occasional fire? Sure. There's going to be something that we did not have foresight on to see. But how they handle it is not being a hero.

It's not running around being the amazing person who puts out the fire. It's the person that goes and solves it with the least amount of distraction from people who are trying to learn, right?

People who are trying to get their life changed. So, you know, I remember we had a gal that a leader that said she felt like she was the office mom, that everybody came to her.

She was always fixing everything for everyone. And then once she stepped back and like started coaching instead, realizing, you know, what should a mom do?

A mom shouldn't solve all the kids problems, right? The mom should be teaching.

Once she did that, it was amazing how much her team's confidence grew and her stress dropped because it was super stressful being the one that everybody came to to solve problems.

The funny thing is, is as I'm sharing the story, I'm thinking of many of you folks, many of you ladies out there who are clients of ours that are probably going, is he talking about me?

Because there's so many people who've experienced the same thing, right? That they, once they started coaching, they realized how much of their stress dropped.

So here's the deal. If you're always fixing, then absolutely you're not developing.

If you're always fixing, you're not developing.

Coaching Unlocks Ownership (00:08:40)

Key point number two, coaching unlocks ownership. Coaching is about asking questions. It's about giving guidance. It's about challenging people to think.

It's about getting people to think for themselves. It's about helping people to understand they have the authority to move forward on something.

It's helping people to understand that it's okay to question stuff and to try and dig in and try and find information, try and solve things, Right?

That they can do that. Right? It helps your team take responsibility and grow in their own roles. So when you have somebody who's constantly coming to you to solve a problem, no matter how small or how big, and you solve the problem, it's you.

You just gave a man a fish. You didn't teach him how to fish, right? He eats for a day, he doesn't eat for a lifetime.

The old parable or old bit of wisdom, whatever you want to call it, when you help somebody learn how to fish, when you teach them how to fish, when you teach them how to solve, when you teach them how to dig in and get to perspective and get to information, then all of a sudden that starts helping them to take responsibility for their role.

So think of like a team member keeps missing deadlines, right?

Where a lot of folks would get just upset or irate or rip somebody's head off or whatever. Or maybe you become passive aggressive or, you know, doesn't matter.

Instead of having that normal response, scolding or putting distance between you and that person or ripping their head or whatever it is.

Instead of doing that, what if you asked a simple question, hey, help me to understand what's getting in your way of hitting these deadlines.

That simple question can reveal way more than you can possibly imagine. There may be a crazy deep workflow that this person is struggling with or the team could be struggling with as well, right?

It might be that they are taking on too much. It could be that their personality style is taking on a ton of stuff to try and impress you or impress somebody else. Right?

It might be that they feel that there's this crazy responsibility that they have to do too much.

Or it could be they're doing the process wrong. You know, maybe they're walking through this process and either weren't trained well or they're not following the process.

There could be so many things that could help you to get to an understanding of why this person keeps missing deadlines.

But if you keep doing the same thing you've always been doing, you're gonna keep getting the same thing you've always been getting. Right?

You have to understand, you have to change the process.

And if you go at it from what you were taught when you had a leader over you or leaders from your past, which was just get upset at somebody or, you know, scold them or whatever, then you're going to be in the same trap that those leaders were in.

You're not going to change you and unfortunately you're not going to change your team member.

When you start coaching team members, then it trains the team member, the person to lead themselves.

Because instead of telling them what to do, instead of being frustrated, which most likely is shutting them down, if you're a parent, you understand that with any child that you've gotten overly frustrated with and you just watch them shut down instead of doing that.

If you coach them, if you will coach them and ask them questions and dig in and gain perspective and do whatever it takes to get to truth.

What you may discover is that there's something else going on that you don't know about. And when you get to it, you can help them fix it. Not you fix it. Help them fix it.

You know, my six year old daughter, I always think it's funny because she has me for dad. This is what I do. And so she gets asked, you know, kids ask 400 questions. Well, guess what?

This dad asks 400 questions. You know, baby, what could you do differently? Take another look at that. I know you want me to solve that for you, but how could you solve it?

And the crazy thing is is my daughter has a tendency to have the I don't know answer, which that does not work with this guy, right? I'm not the person that I don't know works with.

I cannot stand I don't know, right? Give me something. Show me that you're trying to solve anything. Some piece of information more than anything. Ask a question, Ask a freakin' question.

If you will ask a question, then at least it tells me that you're trying to get to some level of perspective which may lead you to the piece of information that can help you solve your problem.

So that is one thing that, you know, with my six year old, that's what she gets. Hey, babe, give me some idea, give me some question, give me some thought.

Why do you think, you know, because she's the type of person that's like, daddy, why is that happening? Daddy, how come you did that? Daddy, why is Jose doing that over there? Daddy, why is this? You know, and for me, I'm just like, why?

Why do you think? You tell me why you think that's happened. Oh, I don't know. I don't know is not a good answer. Give me some idea. And then when she, keep in mind, she's only six, so when she gives me some idea, it's rarely ever the correct one.

But every now and then she nails it, right? But when it's not the correct one because she's six, this is the caveat, folks.

Then I'll give her information. That's a good idea, that's a good thought. I like how you thought about that. I see where you got to that. Here's the reason, here's the thing, here's the whatever, and fill in the information.

What she's learning is to be coached. What she's learning is to think for herself before asking a question. And let me tell you, she is somebody who asks a question a nanosecond after the thought hits her brain, right?

It's like she's formulating the question and the words are already coming out of her mouth. So if you will continue to coach people, what you will discover is they will begin to lead themselves.

The great thing is when I hear my daughter say something that, like, I know she's about to ask me a question and she'll go, daddy, no, no, think about that.

And she will, in this small voice, she will correct herself, she will catch what she's about to do and then she'll be like, no, no, think about that for a second.

And it may take her minutes before she comes back with something. And then eventually if she doesn't, then I'll come back and say, hey, what were you gonna ask me? Right?

Because I want her to feel like she can win at this process, but she's doing what I'm intending her to do, to think on her own. So great thing to do, coach people so that they can lead themselves.

Great Coaches Lead with Questions, Not Control (00:15:48)

Key point number three, Great coaches. Circle, star, highlight the word great. Great coaches lead with questions, not control. Folks, leadership is not about knowing everything. It just isn't.

Even if you do know everything, it's still not about knowing everything. It's about helping other people discover how to think, how to act, how to grow.

That starts with asking quality questions. If you are not doing a good job asking quality questions, then what you will find is you're not going to help somebody grow.

If they're going to grow, they're going to grow on their own. They're not going to grow because of you. Right? Because telling people what to do rarely is the thing that causes them to grow.

But if you will ask great questions, what you will discover is, is you cause their brain to work. When you control.

When you are somebody who tells people what to do, when you're somebody who operates from emotion, when you're somebody who grabs hold of, you know, the project, the, the task, whatever it is, and, and you take it and you run with it.

When you do controlling things, it's the same thing as what happens to that little kid. You shut that person down.

When you are a controlling leader and you control the outcomes, you control the process, you control the person, essentially, then what happens is, is that person just gets it in their brain. Don't do this.

Don't go this far. Always go to this person, this leader, this business owner with this information or this stuff because they're going to be the ones to do it.

You create inside that team member or leader or whatever child, spouse. You create inside of them, this block. Don't go past this point.

You don't get treated well when you do. So if they're trying, man, I will tell you, I am so happy to see somebody trying to solve a problem on their own.

That just gets me excited. Right. The thing that drives me absolutely nuts is when they don't try at all, especially if I'm paying them, right?

If I'm paying money, then, well, they should be doing something. So you have to understand that a great coach isn't going to control. They're not going to take back. They're not going to, you know, push the other person out of the way so that they can solve the problem.

Instead, they're going to get in there and they're going to solve. They're going to--

They're going to get in there and they're going to ask questions so that they can create clarity, so that they can hopefully get this person to buy in on the situation, the role, the project the outcome, whatever it is, they're going to help that person drive toward ownership.

So just getting in and finding out what the issues are that are holding people back, just getting in and finding out what they're experiencing in the moment.

Just getting in and asking great questions will blow you away at how much that will unlock a person and help them to focus on what needs to get done and to think for themselves.

Coaching Requires Patience—but Multiplies Progress (00:19:03)

Key point number four. Coaching requires patience, but it multiplies progress.

So I will tell you, yes, I know what's going on in your mind, Chris. I don't have time to do this.

There's a reason why you don't have time to do this, and that's because you haven't created the time. You haven't been doing the things I'm talking about in this episode.

If you are somebody who has been training and coaching and guiding from the beginning, then you will be amazed at how much time you have to solve things or to help other people solve things or to coach and guide people on things.

So, yeah, I get it.

The concept of having patience in situations like this, when you're running and gunning, when you feel overwhelmed, and most of you do feel overwhelmed, and that's why we do what we do and why we're trying to help you to become less overwhelmed or not overwhelmed at all.

When you are overwhelmed, the concept of having patience to coach just seems ridiculous. But here's. Because it takes longer, right?

But here's the deal. When you achieve it, when you start making time, even if it's five minutes. But I will tell you, a lot of some coaching

Sessions nowadays are 30, 60 seconds because the team is so good. But in the earlier days, when we have people that are new on the team, you might be coaching somebody for 15, 20, 30 minutes.

You might be coaching somebody on the same thing a couple times in the same day.

Any of that is possible. And you're thinking to yourself, there's no way I could do this. Chris, you're asking for the impossible. I'm not. What I'm asking you to do is start prioritizing coaching so that you have more time back.

If you will prioritize leading people well, you will gain time back. But it's going to be a pan in the butt on the front side. You're going to have to make time.

You're. You're gonna have to question, can I fit five minutes in right here? What is more important? Do I just solve this person's problem right now or do I spend time coaching?

Do I have enough time to coach this person properly. A lot of folks that have been through StratPlan, they hear me ask 400 questions a day, right?

It's just an incredible amount of questions going through, gaining information, guiding them to perspective, helping them to think through stuff.

And once in a great while, I'll start to ask a question and go, I'm not going to be able to get you there through this question. Let me just say this thing. Boom.

That is like less than half a percent of the time. I don't even think it's that. Right. It's considerably less than that. So there are going to be times that you have to think, I literally don't have time to coach on this right this second.

Let me just give an answer. That should be the minority of the time, right? That should be so few and far between. You should look at. Even if it's just asking one question, you can coach right now.

I'm going to say try and spend an extra, you know, 10 minutes with a person. We had a leader who was spending just 10 extra minutes helping a team member plan out a client call.

And you know, they said that that person started closing deals within a month because they didn't. There's a piece that was missing and they weren't closing deals.

And so 10 minutes coaching this person helped that person to start closing deals. So yes, it's gonna be more difficult in the short term. I get that.

But folks, when I say that I don't do a ton of coaching nowadays and my leaders don't do a ton of coaching nowadays, I'm not kidding when I say I've got time to coach if I need to.

I'm not kidding. It's been that way forever. Like, I have to stop and think back to when we're coaching people when they're brand spanking new, right?

And what that looks like and how much time and effort we put into that. So, yes. Do I still do coaching? Absolutely. I'm always leading my leaders.

But the amount that I lead them now is. Is considerably different than what I was doing when I was first building that leadership team.

You Can’t Coach What You Don’t Model (00:23:23)

So key point number five, you can't coach what you don't model. You cannot coach what you don't model. You can't call people to a standard that you don't live by.

So if you want your team to take initiative, if you want your team to solve problems, if you want your team to lead themselves, start showing them how.

Now in your brain you're going, wait a second, Chris, I think you're contradicting yourself because you're telling me not to solve problems, but then are you telling me to solve problems?

Listen, I'm not just talking about solving problems, right? Definitely model to other people, you solving your problems. The things that you do at your level. There's nothing wrong with that.

But that's not even what I'm necessarily talking about. You know, we had a business owner who made this decision that every single time they ended meetings, they were going to do it with action steps, with follow up, right?

As they would model these types of things, action steps, follow up, then team members started doing the same thing. When they would start modeling accountability, then accountability improved across the team.

When they would do these aspects of the things they wanted their team members to do, the team members would do it.

The crazy thing is, I think every one of us, or at least most of us, have worked for a leader who had high expectations that they didn't fulfill themselves.

And how did that make you feel? You're like, well, if they're not actually going to do the thing they're calling me to, why do I have to do it? Right.

I can remember in my younger days having those very struggles with some leaders. It happens. So don't be that person, right? Allow them to see you doing the very things you're calling them to do.

Many times if I'm solving problems for somebody, you know, especially somebody new, if you've been with me for a while, then you understand you're going to get questions, right?

But it's funny, whenever you have somebody new and you start asking them questions and they're like, oh, you don't know the answer to this. And I'm like, oh, no, I know the answer.

I want you to get to the answer. And like, oh, oh, okay, well, let me try that. Right? They immediately think, well, I sure thought you would have an answer. Yes, I do have an answer, but I don't want you to go by my answer.

What I want you to do is I want you to stop and think about this and I want you to come up with an answer. I'm going to help you and I'm going to guide you through this.

And ultimately, if you can't get there, then I'm going to give you the information. When they can see that, you know, again, if they see the other aspects, it doesn't have to just be problem solving that they need to see you model.

They need to see you model all the things you're asking them to do, if you will do those things. Then what you'll find out is, is that your example is your strongest leadership tool.

Action Steps (00:26:04)

So, folks, here's what I want you to do. I got some stuff for you that I want you to do right now. So first thing I want you to do is I want you to identify one team member, just one who's overly dependent on you.

You. You probably have a name that just popped up in your mind right now, and you could see it. If you don't, then I want you to think through it and I want you to think of one person who's overly dependent on you.

The next time they bring you a problem, ask three clarifying questions before you give any advice. I don't care what those questions are. Ask three clarifying questions.

When you do that, they will start thinking about answering those clarifying questions. Any good, decent human being is also going to think to themselves, oh, geez, I could ask myself that question, oh, wow, I could have thought of that.

I could have come up with that. So three clarifying questions before you give any advice. Another thing I want you to do is block 30 minutes this week.

30 minutes to plan how to coach your team through a recurring issue that you've seen them experience time and time again.

So instead of solving it for them, coach them through the process. All right?

Additional Resources (00:27:19)

Some additional resources. Episode 577 leading ahead of the Curve. The Power of Proactivity.

This is going to teach you how to transform your leadership approach from reactive firefighting to proactive success. In this episode, we dive deep into the importance of being a proactive leader.

Virtual Team Trainings (00:27:40)

Also, here's what I want you to think about. Imagine transforming the way you lead without ever leaving your office.

Our virtual team training gives you practical tools, leadership insights, and accountability you can use right away. All of that on your schedule. Just go to chrislocurto.com/training to learn more about that chrislocurto.com/training.

Well, folks, firefighting will keep you busy. I can promise you it will keep you busy, it will keep you overwhelmed, it'll keep you wondering what in the world you did today, but it won't grow your business.

Coaching builds leaders who multiply your vision, reduce your stress, and create real momentum. So next week we are wrapping this series up with one of the most common mistakes leaders make, and that is expecting what they haven't actually taught.

Well, folks, that's all the time I have for today. I hope this has been a blessing to you. I hope this helps you. I hope you take this information and help somebody else with it.

I hope you go leave a review, a remark for us because that helps us to reach more people. But use this, you know, somebody who needs to hear this stuff.

Get this to them. As always, take this information. Change your leadership. Change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.