What is your Leadership Culture - The "Three D's of Leadership."

What is your Leadership Culture?

 As a leader, I would always tell my team, “If I am doing your job, then I’m not doing mine.”  Metaphorically, I was letting them know they had the authority and freedom to get the job done within the scope given.  I would then segue to my “Three D’s of Leadership:” Decide, Delegate, and Disappear.

Let’s start with the last one: Disappear.  Please do not take this literally.  A leader should be around to make decisions and delegate work; but should not be in the way of the staff getting the job done.  The leader provides the tools, sets the direction, assigns the work, and where necessary, removes roadblocks to success.  The leader should not get in the way of their staff finding and owning their own successes.  The staff must be able to own the fruits of their labor and get the psychological and intrinsic rewards of accomplishment.

The leader must also make decisions.  This would seem the easiest, but too often leaders decide by “ambivalence” and let decisions make themselves because time ran out on all the options save the only one left available.  Day-to-day decisions may be made in the Disappear mode by letting the staff decide certain courses of action within their span of control.  However, the Leader must make decisions in times of uncertainty, where there is limited information, or where there are many variables.  In other words, the value of the leader is in making decisions in times of chaos. 

The Leader cannot do all the work.  (Remember, “If I’m doing your job, I’m not doing mine.”)  The Leader must delegate and the staff must know their roles and responsibilities.  The leader puts the staff in position to be successful.  A baseball manager examines the match ups and fills out the line-up card who he thinks has the best chance of winning that day.  The pitcher pitches; the batters hit; well you get the idea.  Each one of the team know their roles throughout the course of the game.

So, what is the Leadership Culture in your organization?  Are decisions made or do they just happen because the clock ran out?  Is work delegated or do the leaders do the work while the staff waits?  Is Leadership like a hovering helicopter making the staff fear failure? 

I’ve decided the questions to ask and delegated them to you.  Now I’ll disappear while you answer.