September 2, 2020

1 Leadership Thought

A common mistake that leaders make is that they try to manage people, instead of talent. Often, they believe this about their employees:

  • They aren’t capable of making key decisions

  • I have to tell them how to do their work

  • They’ll slack off if I don’t keep them accountable to their hours

Can I offer a suggestion? Start with looking at yourself — are you a perfectionist or could you have hired the wrong person? The negative is you might be a part of the problem — the positive is you can also be a part of the solution.

Good leaders hire the right people and develop their talent through autonomy, which looks like:

  • Releasing authority to make decisions

  • Giving freedom to choose how to best accomplish their goals

  • Checking in on their progress, not their hours worked

If you do believe that you have the right teammates, here’s three ways you can unleash them with autonomy:

  • Value Originality — Giving autonomy means the work won't always be done your way. Good news:Your team doing the work their way will probably bring new ideas that actually improve your team (and company).

  • Real-Time Feedback — Autonomy demands accountability. If you have specific goals with time limits, you should be able to easily check in on your team’s progress on their goals and give real-time, useful feedback that they will appreciate.

  • Be a Lead Blocker — As a team, you win together. As a leader, serve your team by helping get obstacles out of their way so they can focus on their work and achieve your team’s goals.​

To summarize, “good leaders have hired the right people, trust them, and give them autonomy in making decisions” (Share this on Twitter) and choosing the best way to accomplish their work so that the team achieves their goals.

1 Resource

Gary Hamel (author of Humanocracy) on the value of autonomy:

"You can build very substantial organizations with literally no hierarchy at all. The secret to that in creating a company where everyone has the freedom, the incentive, and the skills to think and act like an owner. And that — in our experience, you can scale that indefinitely."

Examples:

  • ​Nucor — worth $20 billion with over 26,000 employees — and only 100 people in their front office

  • ​Buurtzorg — Dutch leader in home healthcare with 16,000 employees — and needs only 2 managers

Source: Building a StoryBrand Podcast: Why Micromanagement is Killing Your Business​

1 Question

What simple decision can you give away that will make everyone's lives better?