Why You Keep Solving Problems That Shouldn’t Be Yours

You solve every problem that lands on your desk.

Your team has issues. You fix them. They bring more issues. You fix those too.

At first glance, this looks like good leadership. Smart people seeing problems and solving them. But when I work with some founders, I notice a pattern.

The same situations keep happening.

What looks like problem-solving is actually something deeper. We call this the savior complex. When a person steps in and picks up someone else's problem or poor performance.

It seems like the right thing to do. After all, it's your business. But the pattern is happening because of you. And you're keeping it alive.

The Psychological Payoff

This is a deep subconscious pattern. The psychological payoff usually reinforces an identity.

You may not see it consciously, but you're the fixer, the ‘savior’. The mind loves familiarity. The ego loves staying exactly where it is. So it becomes a habit.

Every time you solve their problem, you get to be who you've always been. The person who has the answers. The one who can save the day.

But this pattern is fundamentally a trap.

The Real Cost

What this actually costs is time and attention that could be spent on high-level projects. It takes enormous cognitive load and it’s stressful.

When you're constantly thinking about problems and solving them, you're often in fight-or-flight response. This keeps you stuck down in what I call the 80%. The busy work. The things holding you back from the 20% that would take you to the next level.

The cost is growth, time, peace of mind, efficiency and the ability to scale. Research shows founders with lower resilience face significant challenges so mitigating overwork and stress is fundamental.

But there's something even more insidious happening.

The Collusion

On some level, this pattern is one of collusion. By rescuing team members and picking up their slack, you reinforce both roles. Theirs and yours.

They get to stay dependent. You get to stay indispensable.

When leaders habitually rescue their teams, they create what researchers call organizational dependencies that kill productivity and create waste.

Your team never develops their own problem-solving capabilities. They never have to stretch. They never have to grow.

And you never get the headspace to think bigger.

The Identity Trap

The identity of a founder has often been problem solver. But problem solving should only be a small part of what's happening when you're ready to grow.

A visionary founder can see the next level. They can see how markets are changing. They have vision and courage.

All thinking is built on our mental maps. All the things we believe to be true. But like any map, these are often outdated.

More importantly, all of our thinking is built upon our identity. When we're working from an outdated sense of self, everything flows downstream from that.

The Way Forward

Breaking free requires commitment. A commitment to growing, to becoming a version of yourself you don't yet know but want to become.

If you recognize this pattern in yourself, start with self-awareness. No judgment needed. Then look at the reasons why the pattern remains.

But, we can't hear our own words. We can't receive our own treatment. As a thinking partner and coach, I’m able to hold up the mirror, be truthful and help founders see what’s really happening.

As Rich Litvin often says, fear is a mask for desire. What we fear is often the inverse of what we really want.

The real thing to fear is stagnation.

When you break free from the busyness and distraction caused by these patterns, you can focus on the big picture. Scale and growth, yes. But also how you're operating.

Are you calm? Do you have a clear mind? Are you feeling fulfilled?

Breaking free from the savior complex is not about abandoning your desire to help. It's about finding balance and learning that your value isn't defined by how much you do for others.

Letting go of who you've been allows new ways of being to flow.

When a founder is free to think bigger, they can create something very special.