I read an entertaining book recently by Formula One Team Principal Guenther Steiner. If you’re an F1 fan or you’ve watched Drive to Survive, I recommend the book – it’s laugh-out-loud funny purely by Guenther just being Guenther, and it’s a real behind the scenes look at the world of F1.

Steiner is the team manager of Haas F1 team so you’ll pick up lots of insights from his leadership style like this one…

“With regards to the communication within Haas, there are three steps: we discuss it, we decide that I am right, and then we carry on.”

With just one sentence there is a lot to learn about leadership. Let’s unpack it. First off, he’s being funny. Having a sense of humour and not taking yourself too seriously is a leadership skill. Secondly, there is a confidence in himself and his ability to make good decisions. To lead your team, you have to have your own version of unshakable self-confidence. And third, he isn’t dictating to his team, he discusses with them and involves them in his decision process, they decide and get behind it as a team and move forward.

I’d like to share a process for solving issues and making decisions with you that we follow in Jones And Co. and Optical Success Academy. There are three steps to it: Identify. Discuss. Solve.

Most teams and businesses get bogged down in endless discussion that usually turns into moaning and the same points are raised over and over without anything productive happening. This doesn’t help you or your team. The first step of solving any issue is IDENTIFY and that means you need to identify the real issue – it’s not the first thing that is raised, that’s usually a symptom. You need to ask “why does that matter?” a bunch of times and after why? why? why? why? why? you’ll identify the real issue at the root of it. Now you all know what you’re really talking about.

The second step is DISCUSS. This is simply about everyone being able to voice all the different aspects of the issue at hand from all perspectives. You’re simply just getting it all out on a list so you can see the issue clearly without missing anything. Once if feels like you’re starting to repeat yourself as a team or moaning and aren’t coming out with any new information about the issue, that means the discussion is over. You’ve got everything you need.

The third step is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you SOLVE the issue. You decide what you are going to do. You find solutions. You clarify what the options are and you come up with several options and you pick one. Even making the wrong decision is better than making no decision at all because you are moving and you will get feedback and learn and you can adjust as needed. Doing nothing means you learn nothing and nothing changes and you don’t make progress and you live in a world of frustration!

This simple process is a way to solve any issue in your business or your life. Embrace it, practice it, and master it.

By the way, often there will be a difference of opinion among the team about the correct decision so it’s important to clarify that you make the final decision in those cases. Clarify with the team that it’s your job, you’ll involve them in the decision process and get their input, but it’s not a democracy – the person whose job it is to make the decision has to make the decision and it’s the team’s job to get behind it once the decision is made.

I have two other important points about being an effective leader that I want to impress upon you here. Read a book like the one above, or any book that shows you how people who have achieved success think and act, and you’ll realise that it’s impossible to boil it down to just one or two or three things they do. Same way you can’t be a great optometrist with only one or two or three tests you can do. The truth is you need a much bigger toolkit to be effective and you have to realise and use all your skills and use the right skill at the right time.

I could pick other parts of the books and comments from Guenther where he is using the skill of humility, the skill of asking for help and reaching out to others, the skill of motivation and positivity, the skill of ranting and letting his team know what it not acceptable, the skill of setting realistic expectations, the skill of persistence, the skill of learning and constantly looking for ways to improve… I could keep going but you get the point.

That’s why I’m convinced what you really need to develop as a leader is courage and discernment. Discernment is about using your judgement to determine what is required for the situation at hand. You don’t use the same approach for every single problem – you have to discern what the best tool is for this individual and unique situation at this particular moment in time. That’s discernment. Courage is then having the conviction to do what must be done.

Here in OSA, and in Scale Up Mastermind in particular, that’s the real help that you’re getting – you’re sharpening your ability to discern and you’re surrounding yourself with a strong peer group who help you find the courage to do what you know you need to do.