When a crisis emerges for your team, is your instinct to jump in and start fixing things?

While this very natural impulse to take control may seem like sound leadership, it can end up causing more problems than it solves, says Colonel Fred Maddox, an assistant professor at the U.S. Army War College and Chief of Staff of the Army senior fellow at Kellogg.

“When leaders act like they’re the only ones who can solve something, it can become an issue for the whole organization,” he says, “because they’re not focused on strategy and they’re doing someone else’s job.”

We’ll dive into Maddox’s advice today, and we will also hear an interesting take on why Elon Musk is struggling so mightily at Twitter.

When a Crisis Hits, Let Your Team Do Its Job

Maddox acknowledges that it can be very hard to refrain from stepping into the breach when you see your team struggling, especially for leaders who have risen through the ranks. But the responsibility of senior leaders is to focus on the bigger picture and not be mired in tactical processes. Additionally, constantly jumping in to save the day makes your team feel like their contributions aren’t valued, which can kill morale.

Here’s some of Maddox’s advice for what to do when you feel tempted to solve your team’s problems alone:

Let go of the need to be a hero: Let’s say your sales team loses two major clients in a week. Your gut may tell you to get on the horn to lure them back. But if you insist on doing everything yourself, you are taking away opportunities for your team to prove that they are capable of doing the job. Maddox suggests appointing a senior staff member who understands your sales team’s priorities. “When you’re in a position of authority, it’s your responsibility to extend trust to the individuals on your team,” Maddox says. This also frees up your attention to focus on how the loss of clients impacts other parts of the business.

Help your team prepare for a crisis: Of course, you need to make sure your team is well-prepared for a crisis so that you are able to trust them when one occurs. Maddox points to the military’s use of ongoing training and simulations as a model to prepare teams for the unexpected. Though most companies would not have the resources to replicate this, leaders can accomplish the same goal by creating safe opportunities for teams to learn and share hard lessons. This ensures that employees are primed to take more ownership when difficult issues surface and that you will no longer feel the onus to fix everything. “They have the opportunity to build their confidence and skill sets in tasks that will allow them to eventually take some of the weight and burden off of you.”

You can hear more of Maddox’s advice by reading the full article here.

Elon Musk Needs a Better Network

Elon Musk’s problems at Twitter are myriad. And while there are a host of reasons why things have gone off the rails, Brian Uzzi, a professor of management and organizations, has an interesting take: “One culprit could be Musk’s professional network,” he writes in Forbes.

Uzzi explains that research shows that leaders do better when they have a diverse network of independent thinkers. This creates a situation where the network can help bolster some of the areas where the leader lacks skills or vision. Musk has done just the opposite, Uzzi says. He dissolved Twitter’s board and brought in a group of his friends, who all know one another.

Uzzi says that while this may be the wrong move, it’s not uncommon for leaders when they are thrown into a crisis.

“Instead of relying on the advice and support of a diverse mixture of contacts, they ‘turtle up’ in an echo chamber,” Uzzi writes. “Once in the echo chamber, and oblivious to the fact that they are in it, leaders become less situationally aware and more reactive, and have higher confidence in their decisions but not more accuracy than if they made the decision themselves. It’s a perilous position for a leader.”

You can read Uzzi’s full piece in Forbes here.