When an organization hits a wall—be it a product failing in the field, a critical project slipping off the rails, or a big customer walking away—the knee-jerk reaction is often to lean on the leaders already in place. After all, they’re the ones with the titles, the experience, and the authority, right?
Wrong. Hard problems don’t care about org charts. Once you’ve got a grip on what’s broken, the real trick is finding the right people to fix it, not just piling more responsibility on the folks already wearing the leadership hats.
I’ve seen this play out time and again: a team scrambles to patch a sinking ship, but the captain’s too busy steering to notice the hull’s cracked. Leaders are crucial—they set the vision, rally the troops, and keep the machine humming—but when the stakes are high and the problem’s gnarly, you need specialists, not just generals. You need someone who can walk in, assess the mess, and clean it up with precision—like a certain suit-clad fixer we all know.
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” – Steve Jobs
The temptation to default to existing leadership is real. They’re known quantities, and shuffling the deck feels risky when the clock’s ticking—like you’ve got 40 minutes to bury a problem before it spirals. But that’s a trap. Sticking with the usual suspects can leave you spinning your wheels, when what you need is a crew that can roll up their sleeves and get it done, no questions asked.
This isn’t about sidelining leaders—it’s about empowering them to do what they do best: lead, not fix every nut and bolt. Satya Nadella gets it: “Our industry does not respect tradition—it only respects innovation.” If your go-to move is throwing the same old playbook (or the same old people) at a new crisis, you’re not innovating—you’re stalling. Find the engineers who can debug the code, the customer whisperers who can win back trust, or the logistics wizards who can untangle the mess. Leaders should orchestrate, not operate. They’re the ones calling the shots from the diner, not scrubbing the blood out of the carpet.
So next time your organization’s facing a beast of a problem, resist the urge to just “leader harder.” Dig deeper. Who’s got the skills, the grit, the insight to crack it? It’s not about who’s already in the corner office—it’s about who can stroll in, cool as ice, and say, “I’m here to fix this.” Find those Wolfes—those fixers—and watch the impossible become doable.
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