We've all heard the saying: Give someone a fish and they'll eat for a day. Teach them to fish and they'll eat for a lifetime.
I've always liked that idea. I'm a prepper at heart, so I absolutely believe in teaching skills. I want my daughter to know how to fish (and cook, fix things, recognize danger, take care of herself) and generally know what to do when life doesn't come with instructions.
But there's a part of the fishing story we leave out.
What happens when the river changes? What happens when the fish move? The weather changes? The rod breaks? The technique you've been taught simply stops working?
Knowing how to fish still matters. Expertise gives you a foundation. But eventually, every one of us encounters a problem no one specifically taught us how to solve. That's the part I find interesting.
As you can probably imagine, because of that, I'm fascinated by the TV show Alone. Contestants are dropped into the wilderness with a limited number of tools, no team to rely on and one fairly unforgiving assignment: figure it out.
Food quickly becomes one of the biggest problems. You can fish with a line and hook. Set snares. Try different bait. Move locations. Apply everything you know and keep trying. But then someone builds a gill net and suddenly, they're not just trying harder at the same solution. They've changed the method. They've created something that can keep working while they turn their attention to the next problem.
That's resourcefulness. And I'm increasingly convinced that we don't develop it simply by teaching people more solutions.
I wasn't taught most of what I know by my mom or even in school. Sure, of course I learned some things... but it was the fact that I watched. I tried. I failed. I tried something different…and somewhere along the way, I learned to trust that when I didn't know the answer, I could probably figure one out.
I've tried to teach my daughter more than I was taught. I want her to have practical and emotional skills/knowledge to draw from that I didn't have growing up. But now that she's a teenager, I'm realizing there's another part of teaching her that may be just as important: knowing when to stop teaching.
Sometimes I have to let her discover that what she's doing isn't working. Let her get frustrated. Let her reconsider. Let her try something else. I can give her the fishing rod. I can show her how to use it. But I can't control what she does when the rod breaks and I can't build every net for her.
I've realized the same thing is true in creative leadership.
I've worked with people who encounter a problem and immediately start figuring it out. They research, experiment, ask questions, try something, realize it isn't working and try something else. I've also worked with people who encounter the same uncertainty and stop. They wait for the next instruction, the example, the template or someone else to give them the answer.
As a leader, it's incredibly tempting to provide it. I have more experience. I've probably encountered some version of the problem before. Giving the answer is faster and sometimes the situation absolutely requires it.
But if I always solve the problem, I'm also teaching something: when you don't know what to do, bring it to me.
That's not the lesson I want to teach.
So sometimes leadership means answering the question. Other times it means asking one back: What have you tried? What isn't working? What else could you do? What do you think the next step should be? And then giving them enough room to try it, which can definitely be uncomfortable for both of us. Their solution may not be the one I would have chosen. They may struggle longer than I would. They may even fail and have to start again.
But that's where grit and determination, curiosity and willingness to step into the discomfort can transform someone who waits for the answer, into someone who looks for one.
That doesn't mean withholding expertise or letting people fail when the consequences truly matter. Leadership still requires judgment about when to teach, when to guide, when to intervene and when to step back. But eventually the conditions will change. The process won't fit. The familiar solution won't work. There won't be a template, tutorial (or leader) standing beside them with the answer.
And that's when the real test isn't whether we taught them the right solution. It's whether we helped them develop the confidence, curiosity and resourcefulness to find and recommend one.
Teach them to fish. Then give them enough room to discover that when the river changes, they can build the net.
About Leadership Notes
Leadership Notes is a collection of short reflections on creativity, leadership and how we think when the conditions around us change. Drawn from my experiences leading creative teams, raising a curious human and occasionally questioning my own assumptions, these aren't intended as instructions for how to lead. They're observations about the things I'm still thinking about, learning from and figuring out along the way.