With Your Team
I just finished a trip where I traveled the majority of every week for ten weeks. Although it was challenging in terms of my personal balance, I found the trip validated the need to focus on team. For many years I’ve been explaining the value of including the team in running an effective organization. Top-down management styles are good only for short term. If you want to see your organization move to the next level of performance and productivity, you need to take advantage of the power of the other minds around you, move away from your being the only one that knows everything, and build emotional ownership within the team. These days I’ve been saying:
“You simply need to be the smart student in the slow learners’ class.”
Most organizational “leaders” I’ve spent time coaching, and they now number in the thousands, are nice enough folks. However, four out of five of them have no idea how ineffective they can be! In other words, nearly everyone does a horrible job in their primary role as an administrator/leader/manager. They are usually baby-boomers who grew up under the tutelage of some top-down, micro-managing boss. They saw them succeed and retire with a nice accumulation of wealth, so they assume that model is still valid. Guess what… it only works short term!
“In the past a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people… they no longer can lead solely based on positional power.”
-Ken Blanchard
