More Leadership Means Less “You”
09. Jun, 2010 
16 Comments
Sometimes problems in our teams occur.
Sometimes our natural tendency is to increase our grip, be more present, making sure everyone is there and knows what to do. Communicate to the max, even if it is just through the “two cans with the string” of virtual communication. We’ll talk to people, again and again. Collect every single piece of information. Over and over again.
I am not quite sure why this happens. Perhaps we want to make sure people do the right thing, are not goofing off. Possibly we fear people cannot make the proper decisions or make promises the team cannot keep. It might even be a desire to shield information, making sure a stakeholder gets the “proper” information. What ever the reasons, this is where a paradox comes into play.
If you tighten your grip, increase your presence, you make things worse.
Here are four reasons why it makes matters worse.
One.
If you are the central point for information gathering, communication and decision making, you become a bottleneck. You need time to read, process, make up your mind and ask for clarification. When there is a lot going on in the project environment you get a lot of information and you need to make a lot of decisions. You suffer from an “exploding mailbox”. When delays get serious, this has huge negative impact on team performance. When information only gets available long after the facts have taken place, your team is in trouble. “Just you” creates a bottleneck. No matter how good you are, delays in information flows are not good when you have to respond quickly to changes.
Two.
Another problem is lack of different perspectives if you remain the principal point for interpreting information. In his famous book “Three Blind Men And The Elephant” David Schmalz tells the story of three blind men that are describing an elephant by just touching the animal. The first one feels its trunk and thinks it is some kind of rubber hose. The second one is standing at the side of the elephant and imagines some kind of massive wall. The third and final man is located near the tail of the elephant. He figures its a rope. The moral of this story is that while everyone is “looking” at the same thing, different perceptions create different views. Although individually they might have it wrong, collectively they could derive a proper observation. If it’s “just you”, you miss out on the diversity of minds in your team.
Three.
When intervening your team, you are changing their behavior. By asking them over and over again how they are doing against the plan, you are changing their responses. By being too much “in their face” you might distract them and make it difficult for them to get into a productive flow. As my good friend dr Ali Anani explained to me: “Employees live in complex organizations, complexity imposes unpredictability of the future and only a turbid picture of the future may be sensed. The direct control of the employees will stress them and the employees will act and not behave normally. If a manager wants to see the real behavior he has to do it indirectly and from a distance.”
Four.
And last, but most importantly, people like to have influence. Being recognized as knowledgeable and use their creativity. Being able to make decisions about ones own activities is a huge motivator. By remaining the central point for everything, you miss out on a big opportunity to engage your team members.
More leadership means less “you”.
Bas,
One comment on a great post. The Blind Man and the Elephant metaphor was severely misused by David. The metaphor describes how to expand ones view of the whole elephant and not just look at the single parts. The entire book was a misunderstanding of the solution originally posed in the Indian story.
Leaders must have an overarching view of the problems – not be blind men. And provide guidance to those “working the problem,” of their blind spots, their needed interactions with and between each other, and the governance and vision support for the team.
Katzenbach’s definition of a team works well in many development situations.
“A group of individual that hold each other accountable for a shared outcome.”
Hi Glen, thanks! I like that version even more. Makes also more sense to me.
Love this quote: “A group of individual that hold each other accountable for a shared outcome.”
Dear readers, I stronly recommend that you read the two presentations by Bas de Baar on slideshare. Both give great insights on leadership and other relevant issues. The links are:
http://www.slideshare.net/projectshrink/the-end-of-the-human-cannonball-project-leadership-in-todays-world
and
http://www.slideshare.net/projectshrink/everything-a-project-manager-should-know-about-social-media
Hi Ali, you are really paying attention
thanks for links… yes, this post is actually a part of one of the presentations (end of the human cannonball the be precise).
Good post Bas. Few years back, one of my manager advised me – “First, make yourself redundant and then make your boss redundant”. If everyone follows the same, everyone will grow up the ladder. In my past ten years of experience, I have realized that this has been working everytime!!
Also, I do completely agree with Glen on the Blind men and elephant metaphor. The different versions of the same story itself is demonstrating how interpretations can be different – so #2 in this blog makes sense
Hi Suhas, I absolutely agree. If you set yourself as a goal to eliminate yourself from the project, you make a big step in the right direction
Of course, a manager / leader has a role and purpose. So it’s not black/white.
Bas,
Loved the post. All four points are clear, concise and insightful. I liked number three so much that I lifted Dr. Anani’s quote for the latest post in my own blog: http://right-brainedpm.com/2010/06/22/trust/
It reminded me of part of the chorus from an old .38 Special song, “Hold On Loosely, but don’t let go. If you cling too tight babe, you’re gonna loose control.” (Did I really just quote .38 Special?) Oh well, credibility may be out the window, but I appreciated your post all the same!
Thanks,
Chris
Dear Chris, I have just seen your comment and blog having returned from a rather long trip abroad. Your comment impacted me with its positive leveraging effect. I fail to find the words to record my appreciation.
Dear Bas, Thank you for the mention and credit that flattered me. Truly, you are a true friend.
Hi Chris, great blog post you wrote! excellent. Nah, your cred only just improved
Thanks for the kind words and taking the time to drop a note.
Bas:
Tremendous post! All of the points were right on, but the third is one I never thought. By following up and being in their face, you actually alter their normal behavior and interrupt their natural work flow.
Thx for the post!
-Robert
A good topic, and one I fully agree with. It is vital in any project for the project team to be so confident in their immediate tasks, they can progress with them whether or not the project manager is around. I spend some time making sure project team members know the expected outcomes of the current work they are doing, which aids in clarity of their work, and avoids tasks sitting at 90% complete on the project plan. It doesn’t mean I have to know what they are doing, or how they do it, but I ask the question “what does this look like when it’s complete?” all the time.
– Huw