Ways Leaders Accidentally Make Employees Less Adaptable

Giving Every Answer Can Make Employees Less Adaptable

When someone comes to you with a problem, your instinct may be to solve it. You probably know the answer, and giving it to them may seem like the fastest way to keep things moving. The problem comes when this happens so often that employees learn to bring every unfamiliar situation back to you. They may become very good at following directions without becoming any better at deciding what to do when there is no obvious answer.

You can help by holding back for a moment. Ask what they are considering before telling them what you would do. I like questions such as, “What do you think makes the most sense?” or “What would you do if I weren’t here?” You are still available to guide them, but now they have to do some of the thinking. As more routine answers become easy to get from AI, knowing how to evaluate a situation and decide what to do with the information will become even more valuable.

Rewarding Certainty Can Make Employees Less Adaptable

People pay close attention to what gets rewarded at work. If the employee who sounds certain always looks more competent than the employee who says, “I need to look into that,” people learn very quickly that uncertainty should be hidden. That can become a problem when circumstances change because adaptability requires people to recognize when they may need a different answer.

You can send a different message by showing that changing your mind can be a sign of good thinking. If someone finds new information and adjusts a recommendation, acknowledge it. You can model this yourself by admitting when new information changed your view. Employees need to see that being confident does not mean pretending to know everything. Sometimes the most useful response is, “I don’t know yet, but let’s find out.”

Waiting Too Long To Involve People Can Make Employees Less Adaptable

Leaders often spend weeks discussing a change before employees hear anything about it. By the time people are brought into the conversation, most of the important decisions have already been made. Then employees are told they need to be adaptable. From their perspective, there is very little adapting to do. Their job is to follow the new plan.

You cannot involve everyone in every decision, nor should you. Yet there are many times when employees can be brought into a change before every question has been answered. Ask what they see that you may have missed or what could make the change work better in practice. If you are introducing a new AI tool, for example, let the people who will actually use it explore where it might help and where they see problems. When employees participate while some uncertainty still exists, they get practice working through change instead of simply receiving it.

Treating Questions As Resistance Can Make Employees Less Adaptable

Questions can make leaders uncomfortable during change. When someone asks, “Why are we doing this?” or “What happens if this doesn’t work?” it can sound like resistance, especially when you have already spent a great deal of time making the decision. Sometimes it is resistance. But sometimes the person is trying to understand something that does not make sense yet.

Before assuming the worst, find out what is behind the question. I often suggest responding with something simple such as, “What are you concerned about?” That gives you much more useful information than shutting down the conversation. You may discover a problem you had not considered, or you may learn that the employee simply needs more context. If employees believe that asking questions will make them look negative, they are likely to stop asking. That may make meetings easier, but it does very little to prepare people to deal with situations where questioning an assumption could be exactly what is needed.

Keeping People In Their Comfort Zone Can Make Them Less Adaptable

When someone is excellent at something, it is tempting to keep that person doing exactly what they do best. It makes sense. You know they can deliver, and there is less risk involved. Yet if your strongest employees spend years relying on the same expertise, they may have fewer opportunities to experience what it feels like to learn something unfamiliar.

You do not have to move people into completely different jobs to change this. Give them opportunities to stretch beyond what they already know. Let an experienced employee participate in a project outside the usual area or learn a tool that may become important later. You can also ask, “What would you like to get better at before you actually need it?” That question can lead to a very different development conversation. Being adaptable includes becoming comfortable with being a beginner once in a while.

Building More Adaptable Employees

If you want people to become more adaptable, they have to have some room to figure things out for themselves. You don’t have to stop helping them. But you should resist the urge to step in every time something is uncertain or unfamiliar. Curiosity helps people ask questions and look for better answers when things change. Sometimes giving people a little more room in the moment can help them become much more capable of adapting over time.