“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Did someone inspire you to be where you are today in your career or life? I reflect over mine and can identify several points of time where individuals inspired me, encouraged me, and pushed me—so blessed by each one.

“Mark Cole began his career working for John Maxwell 21 years ago. It was an inauspicious start for the man who would go on to be Chief Executive Officer of The John Maxwell Company and his nine organizations.” Mark started in the mailroom.

Bill Dodd shared a great post that follows along with my philosophy of solution-focused leadership. You can read the post about Mark Cole by clicking on his picture below. I pulled from the article the Four Questions all leaders must ask and How to view Leadership Problems. I added my idea of How to be Solution-Focused.

4 Questions All Leaders Must Ask

4 Questions All Leaders Must Ask

1. When is the last time I learned something for the first time?
2. When is the last time I did something for the first time?
3. When is the last time I found something better for the first time?
4. When is the last time I saw something bigger for the first time?

How To View Leadership Problems

• P – Predictors are a picture of what type of person you are.
• R – Reminders that life is tough. Leadership is demonstrated under challenging times.
• O – Opportunity will make you and other people better.
• B – Blessings. Problems sometimes point you in a more beneficial direction.
• L – Lesson. What did I learn from this problem?
• E – Everywhere. Even before COVID, problems were everywhere.
• M – Message. In every problem, there is a takeaway.
• S – Solvable. Every problem has a solution.

How to be Solution-Focused

• Seeking first to answer “why.”
• Observations of what has been done before, what is happening now, and what is working
• Listen to all possible solutions
• Use the best solution selected by the team
• Try the solution selected, track, assess, and evaluate
• Implement a different solution if the first one did not have the desired outcome
• Open-mindedness brings many ideas to the solution
• Never believe a problem is without a solution

People who have a leadership mindset love solving problems. Every problem is an opportunity to learn and grow. Real leaders know there’s always an answer. Most of the time, there are multiple answers. When you focus first on solutions, we will get more solutions. After spending time on generating ideas for solutions, save them for your next brainstorming session?

COVID taught us to take problems and solve them. If we keep looking at problems, we will keep getting more. COVID does not seem to be going away and continues to be one of those topics that will generate a great deal of debate. Our debate should only be on ideas for solutions.

• Critical Thinking
• Lead Change Group
• Principals and Teachers Network
• School Leadership 2.0
• Solution-Focused Leadership