Shift To The Important

If you're a K12 EdTech leader struggling to shift your time from the urgent to the important, ask yourself how many fires you put out today personally? Michael Bungay Stanier, author of *The Coaching Habit* and *The Advice Trap*, argues that our instinct to jump in with the answer is counterproductive. It shows up in three forms — "Tell It" (you add value only by having the answer), "Save It" (your job is to rescue everyone from struggle), and "Control It" (let go for a second and chaos wins). Each one feels good in the moment. You look smart, you feel needed, you keep things safe, but eventually the bill comes due. You become the bottleneck, you burn out, and your team stops growing.

The fix is to stay curious a little longer before offering advice. Next time ask — "What's on your mind?" — to surface the real issue, because the problem someone leads with is rarely the one that needs solving. Then resist fixing it and follow up with: "And what else?" This is valuable because the good stuff is usually deeper down. When you sense the real challenge, sharpen it with "So what's the real challenge here for you?" — the phrase *for you* keeps ownership on their side of the desk instead of quietly transferring it to yours. Only after they've done the thinking should you weigh in, and even then, offer it as an option ("One thing you could consider is…") rather than a directive, so they still make the call. A few practical guardrails make this stick: hold a slow three-second silence after you ask — the discomfort is where their thinking happens; when you truly must give an answer, follow it with "What's your read on that?" so they stay engaged rather than passive; and end by asking "What's your next step?" so the accountability, and the action, stays with them.

This is where "happy, not right" earns its keep — your worth as a leader isn't measured by how many answers you supply, it's measured by how many capable people you develop. Do this consistently and two things compound over time: you claw back the hours you keep saying you don't have, and your team grows in their ability and confidence to solve the next problem without you.