Do you have a fix-it fetish?
Be honest with yourself for a moment.
Do you see a problem and want to resolve it immediately? When something feels off, do you feel compelled to act? When there is an open question in the room, do you feel the need to answer it? Does ambiguity bother you? Do you pride yourself on being decisive, proactive, and responsive? Is your identity all wrapped up in fixing things?
If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, you aren’t alone!
Most ambitious, capable leaders are wired this way.
They believe that fixing things is how you build a name for yourself, demonstrate value, and make progress. They are rewarded for this instinct early in their careers, praised for being “on it,” and promoted for making things happen. Over time, what started as a strength quietly hardens into a habit, and eventually into something closer to a compulsion.
But here’s the subtle truth most leaders miss.
The fix-it instinct isn’t the real problem. It’s a symptom of something deeper.
What’s actually driving it is a low tolerance for discomfort.
I’m not talking about big, obvious discomfort, the kind that announces itself loudly and demands attention. I’m talking about micro-moments of discomfort that rarely register as discomfort at all. These are fleeting internal signals that something feels unclear, awkward, unresolved, or uncertain. They’re easy to miss because they happen quickly and quietly, but they create a powerful urge to do something, anything, to make the feeling go away.
You’ve experienced this more times than you realize.
An email comes in with a slightly tense or ambiguous tone, and before you’ve fully thought it through, you fire off a response just to settle the feeling in your gut. A vague request lands on your desk, and instead of slowing down to clarify it, you start doing something so you can feel productive and regain a sense of control. A meeting goes quiet for a few seconds longer than you’re comfortable with, so you start talking, explaining, filling space, trying to steer the conversation back to solid ground.
Even outside of work, the pattern shows up. You feel restless, so you check your phone. You feel behind, so you add something to your list. You feel uncertain, so you take action, not because it’s the right action, but because action itself feels relieving.
On the surface, these behaviors don’t look problematic. In fact, they often look responsible. You appear engaged, responsive, and proactive. You’re the person who keeps things moving, who doesn’t let things stall, who “gets stuff done.” That identity is hard to let go of.
But if you look underneath the behavior, the same pattern is always there.
Action has quietly become a way to regulate discomfort.
Instead of sitting with uncertainty long enough to understand it, you rush to eliminate it.
Instead of allowing ambiguity to clarify itself through better questions, reflection, or conversation, you rush in to explain.
Over time, this diminishes the real value you bring as a leader. Decisions get made too quickly. Context gets missed. People stop taking ownership because you step in too much. Teams become dependent because you never gave them space to develop a sense of autonomy.
A fix-it fetish is costly, but it can be avoided with a subtle shift.
Shift your attention from what’s happening outside of you to what’s happening inside of you.
Notice how subtle triggers move you into action and choose to react differently.
Build enough awareness to pause inside those micro-moments of discomfort before they push you into actions that you might regret.
And remember…when you can tolerate a bit of uncertainty without immediately fixing it, you create space for clearer thinking, better questions, and stronger ownership from others.
Over time, that restraint becomes a form of leadership maturity where you stop proving your value by fixing everything and start creating value by choosing when not to.
