What’s My Role as Leader?

A constant tension exists for people who truly want their teams to be successful:  How much control should I hold on to? And where does my role fit with those of my team members (especially if I have managers reporting to me, all with teams of their own)?

How do I set the team up for success, encourage team members’ growth and development, all while balancing the need to accomplish things on time and on budget?  Not easy.

When trying to understand where you as Leader fit in, I offer a test to folks I work with: the ideal role for you to play Is doing only those things that no one else on your team is capable of. Ideally, you’ve created the structure and the delegation such that you feel comfortable working only on bigger, more visionary ideas and championing the team’s role with the organization. That’s a heavy lift and more aspirational than realistic but it’s a place to shoot for because it puts the decision-making and the priorities and the energy in the right places. How do we get as close to that world as possible?

Consider these Four Elements of Leadership

In simplest terms, I think of your job as Leader  as being super clear on the What and the Why and uplifting your team, enabling them to figure out and execute the How. Here’s your job:

1. First be crystal clear about the vision and the outcomes. This is WHAT you’re trying to accomplish. As Leader, it’s essential to have a clear vision and be able to convey that vision or outcome in clear, compelling and measurable ways, so that each individual can understand where we’re going and what their contribution is. If you do nothing else, be clear about what the team needs to achieve to be successful.

2. Second, your role is to share the WHY of what you’re doing. This means giving people as much context as they need to move forward. Not so much that they get lost in the details but enough to give them inspiration for its importance and to make decisions appropriate for their level. You have to determine how to meet people where they are and what they need to move forward.

3. Third, they need the resources to be able to do the job well- this includes the right technology or tools to be able to function effectively; perhaps as important, this means putting the people with the right combination of strengths and skills on the job (and not putting people in roles that aren’t a good fit). This also includes the orientation and training to help them feel confident in their work. It’s your job to ensure this is in place.

4. Expectations for Quality: Fourth and finally (and this is the one easiest to miss), it’s vital to give people a sense of the quality standard you’re seeking. They need to know what GOOD looks like. When we set clear expectations and understand the reasons behind those expectations, people will work to achieve them.

Military leaders are good at this. When they communicate their missions, they don’t say, ‘Go up that hill.’

They say something closer to, ‘Take eight members of your team to Point X on the hill, safely. You’re doing this to be able to provide good intelligence on what’s going on in the valley below. Ensure you’ve got all the communication equipment, food, and supplies to stay there for three days. Once you’re in place and ready to work, report back and let us know.’

Here’s a real-life example:

I’m working with an executive with a major logistics provider. The team has a monthly meeting to go over the status of the operation- what’s working well and what’s not and what changes the team wants to make to improve things. The Exec was frustrated because the reporting he was getting in preparation for the meeting was shoddy- there were clear errors and inconsistencies in logic in the numbers. No one was noticing that the reported statistics didn’t pass the common sense test.

The result was that much of the meeting was spent getting people aligned on the reliability of the numbers. Little time was spent actually discussing the work. Further, this meeting serves as a precursor to a client business review- if these same issues came in that meeting, it would likely translate into reduced confidence from the client- the opposite of what’s intended!

In discussing the situation, it became clear that the executive leader has done a good job of gaining alignment on the vision (the WHAT) as well as setting the context or importance (the WHY) for the meeting. What hadn’t occurred was delivering on #4, the quality standard expected for the materials and the data. The team, having done these for some time, had become a bit lax. It’d become OK for some numbers to be excluded or in error.  The Executive decided to reinvigorate the meetings by focusing on a couple of things:

• Working with the Second in Command on greater ownership of the meetings; This person had been responsible for some time in coordinating the meetings and gathering the data into slides but had lost (or perhaps never had) any  real ownership over the quality of the meeting. Never asked, are we making good decisions based on good data and are we holding ourselves accountable to following up with any decisions made or changes made to improve things?
• Next, the executive leader will be re-orienting the team over the purpose of the meeting. People had begun to understand this meeting as kind of a ‘check-the-box’ status update. Instead, the executive will be re-focusing folks on the meeting being an opportunity to get better, to deliver better results, and to bring the client real ideas for improvement. The quality standard will be reset.

An Action Item

So, consider doing a check-in with your team on the following- where are you delivering well and where are there gaps that might be holding the team back? Or where you might be filling in those gaps unnecessarily yourself.

Ask Yourself:

• Am I clear on the What -the Outcomes of our work? Does everyone on the team know where we’re going?
• Have I conveyed the Why- Do people have the context for why we’re going in this direction so they can make solid decisions around their work areas?
• Are the Resources (equipment, technology, training, confidence) in place so people are set up for success?
• And, do people have a strong understanding of the quality standard we’re seeking? Do they know what good performance looks like? Do they have a measuring stick to know when they’re succeeding?

And, you might want to spend a few minutes reflecting on how you elevate yourself. Take a look at your Calendar and your To Do list and consider: How much of my time and energy are focused on the What and Why activities (which is how you provide the greatest value) and how much effort are you spending in the How stuff (which is where your team should be playing).

And, is there a mechanism in place for your team to let you know you’re too involved?

Good luck with this. It’s no easy feat to have all this lined up together. But now you have an idea of where to look for gaps and where to focus next. Thanks for reading!