The Fixer: When Being the Person Everyone Can Count On Becomes the Problem
There’s a certain kind of person every business loves having around.
Something breaks?
They fix it.
Customer is upset?
They handle it.
Someone on the team gets stuck?
They jump in.
A process isn’t working?
Give them twenty minutes and they’ll probably have some kind of workaround.
These people are incredibly valuable.
Especially in a small business where job descriptions have a funny way of becoming suggestions.
You know the person I’m talking about.
Sometimes, you might be the person I’m talking about.
Today, we’re talking about:
The Fixer.
And the question I want to start with is this:
When does being the person everyone can count on become being the person everyone depends on?
Because those sound like the same thing.
They’re not.
Somebody Has to Solve the Problem
Let’s give The Fixer their credit first.
The Fixer doesn’t spend much time admiring problems.
They want to solve them.
There are people who can spend an entire meeting explaining why something went wrong.
The Fixer is sitting there thinking:
“Okay... so what are we going to do about it?”
That mindset is incredibly valuable.
They’re resourceful.
They’re dependable.
They tend to stay relatively calm when everybody else is freaking out.
And they’re often willing to step outside their official responsibilities because they understand something important:
The problem still needs to get solved.
In small businesses especially, people like this can become indispensable.
When resources are limited and everybody is wearing three different hats, having someone willing to say “I got it” can keep the whole operation moving.
That is absolutely a strength.
But like every strength we’ve talked about in this series...
there’s another side to it.
“I Got It” Can Become a Dangerous Sentence
At first, The Fixer jumping in feels helpful.
Someone struggles.
“I got it.”
Something falls behind.
“I got it.”
Nobody knows how to do something.
“I got it.”
And the problem gets solved.
Great.
Except something else may be happening at the same time.
The person who was struggling never learned how to solve the problem.
The person who fell behind never learned how to recover.
The person who didn’t know how to do something still doesn’t know how to do it.
The Fixer solved today's problem.
But they may have accidentally helped create tomorrow's.
Because eventually the organization learns something:
Just give it to them. They’ll handle it.
And now we have a completely different problem.
Helpful Can Become Necessary
There is a dangerous transition that happens quietly.
At first:
The Fixer is helpful.
Then:
The Fixer is important.
Eventually:
The Fixer is necessary.
And being necessary can feel pretty good.
People come to you.
People trust you.
People need your opinion.
When something important happens, your phone rings.
You become the person who knows how everything works.
That can feel like value.
And it is.
But it can also become identity.
Now The Fixer isn't just someone who solves problems.
Being the person who solves problems becomes part of how they measure their worth.
That's when helping gets complicated.
Because if nobody needs you...
what exactly are you supposed to do?
Sometimes The Fixer Needs to Let People Struggle
This is where The Fixer has some work to do.
Because sometimes helping someone means not fixing the problem for them.
That's uncomfortable.
You can see the answer.
You know exactly what needs to happen.
You could probably do it yourself in half the time.
So why wouldn't you?
Because the goal isn't always getting this particular problem solved as quickly as possible.
Sometimes the goal is developing another person who can solve the next one without you.
That requires patience.
It means watching someone take twenty minutes to do something you could do in five.
It means allowing someone to make a small mistake.
It means asking:
“What do you think we should do?”
instead of immediately saying:
“Here’s what you need to do.”
That can feel inefficient.
In the short term, it probably is.
But leadership isn't only about today's efficiency.
It's also about tomorrow's capability.
Leaders Love Fixers... Until We Don't
Now let’s turn the mirror around.
Because leaders have a nasty habit of creating Fixers and then complaining about them.
We find someone dependable.
So we give them more responsibility.
They handle it.
So we give them more.
They handle that too.
Eventually, every difficult customer, broken process, complicated project, employee issue, and random emergency ends up in their lap.
Then one day we look around and say:
“Why are they involved in everything?”
Well...
because we put them there.
We trained the organization to go to them.
We rewarded them every time they rescued us.
We made them the shortcut around developing everybody else.
Then we became surprised when everyone started taking the shortcut.
That's not entirely The Fixer's problem.
That's leadership.
The Fixer Requires Boundaries
This is today's leadership requirement.
The Fixer requires boundaries.
Not because we want them to stop helping.
Quite the opposite.
We want their ability to solve problems pointed toward the places where it creates the most value.
Boundaries help answer questions like:
Is this actually your problem to solve?
Does this person need your answer—or your guidance?
Should you take this over, or should you teach them how to handle it?
Is this genuinely urgent, or did someone simply wait until the last minute and make it your emergency?
And maybe the most important one:
What happens if you don't fix this?
Sometimes the answer is catastrophic.
Okay.
Jump in.
But sometimes the answer is:
Someone else will have to figure it out.
Good. Let them.
Helping and Rescuing Aren’t the Same Thing
There’s an important distinction here.
Helping builds capability.
Rescuing builds dependency.
Helping says:
“I’ll show you how.”
Rescuing says:
“Move. I’ll do it.”
Helping says:
“Let’s figure this out together.”
Rescuing says:
“Just send it to me.”
Helping leaves the other person better equipped for the next problem.
Rescuing often leaves them exactly where they started.
That doesn’t make rescuing inherently bad.
Sometimes the building is metaphorically on fire and we don't have time for a training seminar.
Put the fire out.
But if every Tuesday somehow becomes a fire...
we might want to stop congratulating ourselves for being great firefighters and figure out why the building keeps catching fire.
The Fixer Can Become the Bottleneck
There’s another consequence leaders need to watch for.
If one person becomes the answer to everything, eventually everything has to wait for that person.
Now The Fixer's greatest strength has become an organizational bottleneck.
Decisions wait for them.
Customers wait for them.
Employees wait for them.
Projects wait for them.
And meanwhile The Fixer is buried.
They’re working late.
They’re answering messages during dinner.
They’re solving everybody else’s problems while their own responsibilities keep piling up.
Eventually they start wondering:
“Why can't anybody do anything around here without me?”
That question should make everybody uncomfortable.
Including The Fixer.
Because sometimes the answer is:
We never gave them the chance.
Being Needed Is Not the Same as Being Valuable
This one matters.
Especially for business owners.
A lot of us secretly wear being needed like a badge of honor.
Nobody can open without us.
Nobody can close without us.
Nobody knows the customer like we do.
Nobody can make that product like we can.
Nobody knows the passwords.
Nobody knows the process.
Nobody can make the decision.
Sounds impressive.
Until you realize what you’ve actually built.
A business that cannot function without you.
That's not freedom.
That's a job with an extremely demanding boss.
And unfortunately...
the boss is you.
The goal of leadership shouldn't be making yourself increasingly necessary.
It should be building people and systems that allow the organization to function even when you're not standing in the middle of everything.
What Does Their Strength Require From Me?
That's the question we've been carrying through this series.
The Challenger required security.
The Driver required direction.
The Visionary required translation.
The Protector required trust.
The Perfectionist required clarity.
The Fixer requires boundaries.
Boundaries around responsibility.
Boundaries around availability.
Boundaries around what they should solve themselves and what they should help someone else learn to solve.
Because we don't want to take away what makes The Fixer valuable.
We still want the person who sees the problem and says:
“Let’s figure this out.”
We just don't want them becoming the only person who can.
— Ruben Escalona
Red Alpha Custom Prints
What Healthy Actually Looks Like
A healthy Fixer still helps. They still solve problems. They still become someone people trust when things get difficult.
But they’ve learned that their job isn't always to provide the answer. Sometimes their job is to ask the right question. Sometimes it's to teach. Sometimes it's to delegate. Sometimes it's to step back and let someone else struggle long enough to grow.
Healthy leadership protects The Fixer from becoming the dumping ground for every problem in the organization.
Because the real measure of a great Fixer isn't how many problems they personally solve. It's how much stronger the people around them become because of the way they help solve them.
Eventually, the greatest thing The Fixer can hear isn't:
“Thank God you're here. We couldn't do this without you.”
It's:
“I got it.”
And realizing...
they actually do.