The short answer
Leadership is not authority, it is the transfer of ownership. I set the standard, hand over the decision along with the task, and then hold people to the outcome rather than the method. People rise to the level of trust you are willing to put in writing.
In full
Most people who call themselves leaders are actually supervisors. They hand out work and keep every decision for themselves. That is not leadership, that is a bottleneck with a title.
My approach is simple. Define the standard so clearly that a stranger could judge whether it was met. Hand over both the task and the authority to decide how it gets done. Then measure the outcome, not the hours.
When someone owns an outcome, they start solving problems you never even hear about. When they only own a task, every problem comes back to your desk — and you become the ceiling on your own company.
The hard part is discipline on your side. You must let people do it differently than you would, and you must let a small mistake happen so a large lesson can land.
From experience
Early on I had a manager who came to me eleven times in one day. On the twelfth, I told him I would not answer — the decision was his, and I would back whatever he chose. He made the call. It was not the one I would have made, and it worked better than mine would have. He never needed me for that decision again.
Common mistake
People think leadership is about motivation. It is about clarity. An unmotivated team is almost always a team that does not know exactly what winning looks like this week.
Do this next
- Step 1
Write down the standard for one role in a single paragraph, in measurable terms.
- Step 2
Hand one recurring decision to the person closest to it, in writing, this week.
- Step 3
For thirty days, respond to questions about that decision with: what do you think we should do?
Questions
- What if they make the wrong decision?
- Then you have found a training gap cheaply. Correct the reasoning in private, keep the authority where it is, and the second decision will be better.
- How do you know when someone is ready for ownership?
- When they bring you a problem with a recommendation attached. That is the signal.
By Robert T Fletcher