Kanye West shared a key insight that I discovered about leadership.
I’m oriented towards the “Tell me” method of leadership. This method involves the least amount of effort but produces the lowest yield for the person being led.
It’s been a process of learning the value of involving people but I will say that I’ve seen the pendulum swing too far in this method–meaning that everyone is equally involved in every issue.
That de-values team member’s individual strengths, indirectly hinders personal development (it takes longer for people to recognize what they are really good at and where they have the most opportunity to contribute), and is extremely time and energy consuming.
A couple solutions I’ve brainstormed and am exploring to balance out this tension and maximize the involvement of others:
Meetings are not the time to involve people; vision casting, accountability to long term strategy, personal connection time, and resource/information sharing are what meetings seem to work best for. If members of a team are unclear of what they actually own in light of the mission, vision, and values, or if the leader is the one that does or is in charge of everything, then meetings often end up being bloated with everyone weighing on but only one or two people executing.
The best place to involve people is in an area where they are inexperienced but gifted/strong. Often times team members come in skilled in areas that they are not gifted in or passionate about. The tendency is to involve them more in these areas since they stand out. But the bigger opportunity is involving them in an area where they are inexperienced but strong; they will not only exercise a great deal of faith but also see a lot of fruit. These are the breakthroughs that young emerging leaders need to thrive.
Have you involved in anyone in an role or responsibility that led to a breakthrough for them?