There’s a common leadership habit I see where a teacher shares a challenge—a student is disengaged, a parent is upset—and within moments, the coach or leader responds with a strategy, a suggestion, or a solution. They respond from fix-it mode.
Fix-it mode is the reflex to respond to someone’s challenge with an idea, a resource, or advice. It sounds like:
- “Have you tried calling the parent after school?”
- “Next time, maybe you could use a different attention-getter.”
- “Let me show you what I’ve used—it works really well.”
Fix-it mode isn’t malicious. In fact, it often comes from a desire to help, to be useful, or to reduce stress. But it’s not as helpful as we think. In fact, over time, this habit can wear down trust, perpetuate dependency, and keep our teams stuck.
The Problem with Fix-It Mode
There are moments when offering solutions is appropriate and even necessary. But most of the time, it’s not. What teachers often need is space to think, feel, and be heard. Generally, the person speaking doesn’t need your solution—they need your presence.
Here’s why defaulting to fix-it mode is problematic:
- It shuts down exploration. When we jump to offer a solution, we interrupt the speaker’s process. We steer them toward what we think the problem is, rather than helping them clarify it themselves. And what we think the problem is may not actually be the problem.
- It disempowers. We may believe we’re being helpful, but we’re inadvertently signaling: You can’t solve this on your own. You need me. Over time, this erodes a person’s confidence in their own capacity.
- It limits learning. Our goal as coaches and leaders needs to be to build long-term capacity. People learn by doing the thinking themselves. Fix-it mode short-circuits that learning.
- It’s unsustainable. If you’re always the one with the answers, you become a bottleneck, you burn out, and your people never develop the problem-solving muscles they need to thrive.
Why We Try to “Fix”
Fix-it mode is deeply ingrained in many of us. We are socialized to see leadership as problem solving. We get rewarded for being quick, efficient, and decisive. And in fast-paced school environments, these are often necessary qualities.
We also do it because it gives us something—it makes us feel helpful, competent, and perhaps even valuable. That’s hard to let go of, especially if we’re not sure what else to do in the moment.
For many of us, fix-it mode is an automatic response to discomfort—to ours or others’. When someone expresses frustration or sadness, we want to do something to make it go away, perhaps because we’re uncomfortable with their discomfort. But doing something isn’t the same as being helpful.
There are moments when offering solutions is appropriate and even necessary. But most of the time, it’s not.
What to Do Instead
The antidote to fix-it mode is deceptively simple: Listen. That’s it. Listen. Stay curious. Be with the person in their experience, without trying to change it.
But listening in this way—what I call transformational listening—isn’t easy. It requires us to slow down, quiet our ego, tolerate ambiguity, and trust that the person we’re with is whole and resourceful.
Here are four concrete shifts to move from “fixer” to “listener”:
1. Get Clear on Your Role in the Moment
Ask yourself: Is it a time to help this teacher solve a problem? Or, Is it a time to help them explore it? Unless you’ve been directly asked for advice—or the situation is urgent and safety is at risk—assume your role is to facilitate thinking, not provide answers.
Try this: Before you respond, pause. And then say, “Why don’t you share a little more about how you’re thinking and feeling about this situation?”
2. Ask Before You Offer
If you do have an idea you think might be helpful, ask before you share it. This small act of consent-building changes everything.
Try this: “I have a suggestion, but I’m not sure if that’s what you need right now. Would you like to hear it?”
This signals respect, centers the other person’s agency, and invites collaboration.
3. Reflect What You’re Hearing
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is help someone hear themselves. Active listening is a core coaching skill that invites clarity and connection.
Try this:
- “It sounds like this student’s behavior really caught you off guard.”
- “I hear that you’re feeling frustrated, and you’re not sure how to move forward.”
- “You’ve tried a lot already, and it sounds like you’re exhausted.”
This kind of mirroring helps people feel seen and often leads to new insight.
4. Trust the Process
If you’re used to solving problems, trusting the process might feel ineffective or even irresponsible. But the goal of transformational leadership isn’t to control outcomes—it’s to nurture growth. When we resist the urge to fix, we create space for people to access their own wisdom. That’s the most powerful kind of support we can offer.
Presence Over Solutions
Leadership is about creating the conditions for others to thrive—not about having all the answers. This means making space for reflection, supporting emotional processing, and trusting that solutions will emerge—and that you don’t always have to provide them.
When leaders stop fixing and start listening, teams grow stronger because trust deepens and capacity expands. You create a culture where everyone contributes to insight and progress.
Perhaps most importantly, you begin to experience your own leadership differently. You stop carrying the weight of everyone else’s problems. You start showing up with more presence, patience, and energy.
So the next time someone brings you a problem, notice your impulse to fix it. Acknowledge the part of you that wants to jump in with an idea or a solution. Then try this instead: Take a breath and say, “Tell me more.”
