Achieved Strategies

It’s a popular belief in leadership circles that a good leader creates an environment for his or her people to do their best work.  The logical next thought to this belief is that the leader steps aside: steps aside to allow employees to apply their own knowledge, skills, and abilities to a project, situation, problem, etc.  It makes intuitive sense. But what does it look like?

I share with you an incomplete list of actions and beliefs for leaders to demonstrate stepping aside. Add your ideas in the comments section below.

1. Hold only one monthly one-on-one: Instead of the need to meet weekly to stay current on your employees’ work progress, hold monthly one-on-ones. Assuming the task at hand is well within the employee’s competency, touch base monthly to talk about the progress.  If it’s a project, you likely receive a weekly written status report.
2. Let employees make mistakes: Yes I know this is easy to say and difficult to do. I’m a recovering control freak: I get it.  It’s easier to swoop in and tell someone how to course correct when a bad decision was made.  This allows us to stay remain in control.  However grateful the person may be by you steering them away from a mistake, you are hovering.  Let the mistake happen and then talk with your employee about what happened. And be sure to have your employee tell you what they did that didn’t work and what to do differently next time.
3. Ditch Command-and-Control: In today’s business world a manager who commands what should be done and controls how it’s done is nearing extinction. This type of management style (notice the word leadership is not used) is archaic and holds no value in a knowledge-based job. If this is your style, get a coach and work on behaviors that invite others to contribute.  The pressures on businesses today increasingly require different angles to look at pressing issues. There is no room for command-and-control.
4. Learn the art of the question: I’m not advocating interrogation here.  I’m advocating that a leader knows when and how to step aside to use open-ended questions.  A driver for these questions is to help an employee “self-discover” his or her own answer or path forward.
5. People want to make a difference: This is a fundamental belief that underlies everything listed above.  Leaders who act from this belief recognize that talent needs space to explore. With guidance offered and given to propel people to dig deeper into their talents, a mindful leader knows when to step back in from the sidelines.  Trust and observation help a leader to know when to step aside and when to intervene as a guide.

Stepping aside isn’t a laissez fair approach to leadership.  It’s quite the opposite. Active involvement with employees is vital for stepping aside. It’s purposeful. It’s intentional.  And it requires insight into what’s going on with a team and employees.  Leaders who can step aside and let their people do what they do best is an act of trust. It is rooted in the belief that people can and will do their best work when given the space to do so.

What would you add to this list? Share it below.