"You need to make a decision"

Learning to lead leaders

When I became a new manager, I had the benefit of having a senior partner, Bob, as my mentor.  He was observant, wise, and insightful…..  and very skilled at recognizing my “development needs”….. and then making them very clear to me. There were times it felt he was more of a tormentor than mentor…..

I have vivid memories of tough conversations with Bob – they all seemed very short.

One tough conversation took place late one night in the lobby of a nondescript hotel lobby in a nondescript midwestern city.   Bob figured out that I had fallen into micromanaging the team….. he could see it was not working…. in his usual direct way he sat me down and in a stern, but supportive tone said:

“there are very big differences between leading and managing. Leading creates and builds the next generation of leaders – managing, especially micromanaging, alienates potential leaders. Will you be a leader – or just a manager?  You can be a leader, a great leader - I know it. But it takes work, careful thought, taking risks….. and deliberate intention about how you want to lead people. Now you need to make a decision whether you are going to be a manager… or a leader.”

As I started to speak, he stood up, said ”I will see you in the morning” and walked off toward the elevator….

I have been blessed by working with some fantastic leaders…and I have been very fortunate to have had very talented people working for me – ugh, with me.  Over time I learned a lot about leading talented people who were also leaders…..

There is one cardinal rule I learned….. lead through our leaders – never manage around them…… at least I thought I had learned….

Just a few years ago, I made the mistake of getting sucked into and intervening in a staffing squabble – you know the drill …. Team A wants person B….. But person B’s Practice Lead has decided that another team is a better fit.  So Team A escalates to the Practice Lead’s supervisor - me…… and I stupidly reversed the Practice Lead’s decision.

It is bad enough that Team A has now been trained to escalate anything they don’t like……but more importantly, the Practice Lead has just been publicly undermined.

When we undermine one of our leaders the damage has just started….. the leader is now unsure whether their decisions will stick…. their supervisor now gets pulled into decisions they shouldn’t….. the leader does not/cannot take responsibility for decisions…. does not really learn from the good ones or bad ones…… uggghhhhh… it is a mess…..

…… lead through our leaders – never manage around them……

….it sounds like one of those empty platitudes printed on a coffee mug and sold next to the scented candles in a greeting card store ….. or a Friday morning LinkedIn post….

It seems to me there are some basic principles that empower leaders to make decisions…. I certainly cannot claim to do follow all these as well as I should…. But I will share my lessons learned and aspirations…..

1. Be clear about the decision boundaries for our leaders.  What can they/should they decide – and where must they get approvals. Then we must respect the boundaries – even when it is uncomfortable and there is a risk of a mistake.

2. When someone escalates around our subordinates, we must refuse to intervene and defer back to our leader.

3. We must invest the time to ensure our leaders understand our values, objectives, ideas, insights and experience….. and then let them – make them - make the decisions. Even if we think it is wrong.  We must trust them and their judgment.

4. The best way for our leaders to learn and grow is to let them take responsibility for their decisions and then see the results. This is tough to do – it takes a leap of faith to let go.

5. When we have good leaders, and we think they are making a mistake, most of the time we are wrong - they are actually making great decisions.

6. Never let a leader defer responsibility by pushing a decision up. We have to push it back down, share our views and then let them know we trust their judgment – and they need to make the decision.

7. If a decision is so important that a mistake is catastrophic, then we should never let the leader make it in the first place. It is our responsibility to get to them before they make a public decision that might need to be reversed.

8. If we absolutely must override a decision made by a subordinate – it is a failure of leadership on our part.  It is our responsibility to to let others know where we made the mistake.

9. If substantive mistakes begin adding up … and we find ourselves being forced to  reverse decisions …we need to replace the leader. It is not their failure – it is our failure – we put them into a role and they were not ready to take on…. Our mistake… and now we need to find a solution that is fair to the leader.
   

Fairly simple principles… maybe even obvious …..but, as I proven to myself many times, they are not always easy to follow……  it has often required closing my eyes, holding my breath, trusting someone – and hoping for the best…. And a vast majority of the time that trust was warranted…. and the risk paid off in building the leader.

 Oh …..one more principle……  when we violate one of these principles …. when we let someone down, especially a subordinate, what we have to do is very clear – admit our mistake and apologize…..

I have found the book Leading Leaders by Jeswald W. Salacuse to be a valuable reference.

     A few thoughts for a Friday…..

Walt