- Do you set expectations and get out of the way or do you solve all the problems?
- Are you deeply involved?
- Are you fixing everything and micromanaging?
The Drawbacks of Being a Top-Down Leader
I work with a contractor client in Nebraska who is successful: they had two locations and the ownership was doing well in spite of the management style. The owner was very much a top-down leader: his attitude was, “I will tell you what to do, you will execute. I will solve the problem, you will execute the problem, and we will be successful.” It worked to a point. What he lacked was a team that had responsibility. There was not ownership within his employee ranks because the attitude was “no matter what we do, the boss will swoop in and save the day,” and it led to him being deeply involved in all aspects of the business. It led to him sucking the time and the life out of himself into the business, and not being able to focus on the things that matter.Creating a Plan for Team Skill Development
So we sat down and worked out a plan on how to address and how to empower his team and build them into leaders that could solve their own problems.- The first step was to set clear expectations: for the business, for the business units, for the teams, and for the individual employees: they knew what they had to do to be successful and how they would be measured.
- Step two was to give them latitude: the owner had to learn to allow some rope, let the leash out a little bit, and give his people a chance to try and fail and learn – and try again – in order to succeed.
- The third step was his role as the coach, as the evaluator – as the one who would sit down with his employees, his managers, and his leadership team and talk through the results and get their feedback: how is this working, what didn't work, how might you do it better? And then empower them to go out and try that next thing.
