I am having a difficult time leading my team. The team members will not follow my instructions, which I am sure would make our project much more successful. What am I doing wrong?
What you're doing wrong is very simple: you have simply forgotten that your team is more critical to the success of your project than you are.
Over the years, I have worked with many great leaders as an executive educator and coach. One client, Charlie (not his real name), in particular is still one of my favorites. He is the one who showed the most improvement — and he is the one who I spent the least amount of time with.
Charlie was president of a division with more than 50,000 employees. His CEO recognized his talents and asked me to help Charlie expand his role, provide more leadership, and build synergy across the organization. Charlie eagerly involved his team in this project. Each person took responsibility for creating positive synergy with cross-organizational colleagues. They regularly reported their efforts, learned from their colleagues, and shared what they learned. They thanked people for ideas and suggestions and followed up to ensure effective implementation.
What I find interesting is that of all the clients I have every coached, Charlie is the client I spent the least amount of time with. This inverse relationship between our spending time together and he and his team getting better was very humbling. At the end of our project, I told Charlie about this observation. "I think that I spent less time with you and your team than any team I have ever coached, yet you and your team produced the most dramatic, positive results. What should I learn from my experience?"
Charlie thought about my question. "As a coach," he said, "you should realize that success with your clients isn't all about you. It's about the people who choose to work with you." He chuckled; then he continued: "In a way, I am the same. The success of my organization isn't about me. It's all about the great people who are working with me."
What an insight! This isn't what most of the conventional wisdom of leadership dictates. Most leadership literature exaggerates, even glamorizes, the leader's contribution. The implication being that everything begins with the leader, that she is responsible for your improvement, she guides you to victory, without the leader there is no navigator.
This isn't true. An oft-quoted proverb says: "The best leader, the people do not notice. When the best leader's work is done, the people say, 'We did it ourselves.'"
Truly great leaders, like Charlie, recognize how silly it is to believe that a coach or a leader is the key to an organization's success. The best leaders understand that long-term results are created by all of the great people doing the work — not just the one person who has the privilege of being at the top.
Life is good.
Marshall
My newest book, MOJO, is a New York Times (advice), Wall Street Journal (business), USAToday (money) and Publisher's Weekly (non-fiction) best seller. It is now available online and at major bookstores.
See my other posts at HarvardBusinessOnline.com
http://www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com
3 comments:
This is such an important lesson. As a leadership coach, I often work with managers who want to have others respect their authority and direction. By encouraging clients to take a coaches approach rather than a boss, they are able to ask questions that get their people moving, involved, and leading the way.
Thanks for this great post, and a nice reminder. . Jennifer Nuce (www.level88.ca)
Absolutely - leadership isn't about you.
Leadership begins and ends with you ... but it is all about others.
Absolutely - leadership isn't about you.
Leadership begins and ends with you ... but it is all about others.
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