Something’s not working. Budget cuts. Team turnover. Shifting priorities. A difficult stakeholder.
You have two choices: complain about the challenge or use it.
Here’s what I see constantly: leaders treat obstacles as interruptions to their real work. They wait for problems to disappear so they can get back to executing their plan.
That’s not leadership. That’s wishful thinking.
The best leaders I’ve coached don’t avoid challenges. They mine them for opportunity. Not because they’re optimists. Because they’re strategic.
Every constraint forces creativity. Every problem reveals a gap. Every challenge shows you exactly where you need to grow.
Stop treating challenges as temporary. They’re not going away. The moment you solve one, another appears. That’s the job. If you’re waiting for smooth sailing, you’ll wait forever. Leaders who succeed accept that challenges are the work, not a distraction from it.
Ask better questions. “Why is this happening to me?” keeps you stuck. “What can I learn from this?” opens possibilities. “Who’s to blame?” creates defensiveness. “What’s my part in this?” creates growth. The quality of your questions determines the quality of your solutions.
Look for what the challenge is teaching you. Losing a key team member? Maybe it’s showing you that you haven’t developed enough depth. Budget cuts forcing tough choices? Maybe it’s revealing where you’ve been wasteful or unclear about priorities. Difficult feedback? Maybe it’s highlighting a blind spot you needed to see. Pain points to growth areas if you’re willing to look.
Find the hidden advantage. Every constraint has one. Limited resources force you to prioritize ruthlessly. Tight deadlines eliminate perfectionism. Difficult people teach you patience and clarity. Team conflict surfaces issues you needed to address anyway. The advantage is there. Most leaders just don’t look for it.
Use the challenge to raise your standards. When things are easy, mediocre work looks acceptable. Challenges expose what’s not working. That project that’s failing? It’s showing you where your processes are weak. That person who’s struggling? It’s revealing where your expectations weren’t clear. Don’t waste a good crisis. Use it to build something better.
Here’s the shift that changes everything: stop asking “how do I get past this?” Start asking “how do I use this?”
One is about survival. The other is about growth.
I coached a VP last year who was devastated when her biggest client left. “This is going to destroy our numbers,” she told me. “I don’t know how we’ll recover.”
We spent time looking at what the loss was revealing. Her team had become complacent, relying on one massive account instead of diversifying. Their service delivery had gotten sloppy because the client relationship felt secure. They’d stopped innovating because they didn’t need to.
The client leaving was painful. It was also a wake-up call they desperately needed.
She used it. She restructured her team to focus on client diversification. She raised service standards across the board. She invested in innovation she’d been putting off. She addressed performance issues she’d been ignoring.
A year later, her revenue was higher than before. Her team was stronger. Her service delivery was tighter. And she had multiple solid client relationships instead of one risky dependency.
The challenge didn’t ruin her. It rebuilt her. But only because she chose to use it instead of just endure it.
That’s the difference. Average leaders survive challenges. Exceptional leaders leverage them.
Your team is watching how you handle adversity. When you complain, they complain. When you panic, they panic. When you treat challenges as career-ending obstacles, they do too.
But when you approach problems with curiosity instead of fear, they learn to do the same. When you find opportunities inside constraints, they start looking for them too. When you use challenges to get better instead of just get through, you teach them resilience.
You don’t build strong teams in easy times. You build them in hard ones. The challenge in front of you right now? That’s your training ground.
Stop wishing it was different. Stop waiting for it to pass. Stop complaining about how unfair it is.
Start asking what it’s teaching you. Start looking for the advantage you haven’t seen yet. Start using it to build something better than what you had before.
Challenges don’t weaken great leaders. They reveal them.
What challenge are you ready to turn into an opportunity this week?
If you want to shift how you approach obstacles and lead through challenges, schedule a call with me.
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