Reflective leadership tool

People Problem or System Problem?

For a live situation that is being described as a person: a manager who will not decide, a team that will not own the work, or a leader who “needs to change.” Twelve original questions help you separate what is still yours to do from what authority, information, decision rights, or the design of the work may be producing.

Use this before you decide that coaching one person is the whole response, or before you decide that nothing can be done until the system changes.

This is a reflective check, not a diagnosis, a personality assessment, or a verdict that someone is the problem. A difficult situation can contain both a personal move and a system condition. One side does not cancel the other.

Your answers stay in this browser session only. Nothing is sent to Mehdi, stored on a server, or shared with analytics—no scores, free text or personal details.

Evidence, methodology and limits

The questions are original. They draw on anonymized recurring themes in Mehdi Nejadrasouli’s coaching practice, including the gap between what a leader controls and what they can influence, and on his HR leadership experience of development requests that name a person before the conditions around the role have been looked at. They also use research already cited on this site: Johns on organizational context, and the work-design literature on how role demands and autonomy shape behavior. The questions are not copied from a proprietary test. Your answers are used only to see whether a personal move, a system condition, or both are visible. No overall score is produced or shown. The difference used to separate the two sides is an internal reflective rule, not a validated cutoff.

Sources and related reading

8–12minutes12questionsLocalanswers only

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