Leading from behind

If this is your first visit, hello and welcome! I write about how to enable a visionary concept called Fulfilling Performance. My first posts explain what that is but you can just jump in here too...

Image credit: Seidenperle

Hello fellow Enablers,

When I was 19 years old, during my vacation from university in the UK, I took a job with an organisation that arranged English language safaris for French children aged around 10 to 14. For three weeks of the summer, we took over a boarding school in the Surrey countryside. We spent the mornings in the classrooms teaching the children English and, in the afternoons, we took them out on excursions.

One of those excursions was simply a walk through the local countryside. I'd point out a beautiful English country home surrounded by parkland, and say, “That's George Michael's house”, and the message would get passed down the line, “C'est la maison de George Michael”.

Some would take pictures and I'd feel a little bit guilty. I have no idea whose house it actually was, but it kept them interested in the walk for a few minutes.

One problem with this walk, apart from the lack of genuine interesting landmarks for youngsters, was that we had to cross a busy dual carriageway. I'd make sure I reached it first, and then I'd turn into a mother goose with all my chicks trying to get them safely across the four-lane highway. They would continue talking with each other, generally messing about, and entrust to me the whole operation of getting them safely to the other side.

On one occasion something else must have taken my attention and as the group came to the road, I found myself right at the back. I can't remember my exact feelings when I realised what I'd allowed to happen, but what happened next has stayed with me to this day and I credit it with significantly influencing my approach to leadership and parenting.

When they reached the road without me up front, the kids stopped walking, stopped talking, started looking both ways very intentionally and focused on getting themselves and each other safely across it. From then on, I always made a point of hanging back and letting the group in my care take responsibility for getting themselves across the road.

And, in case you're wondering, I'm proud to say I didn't lose a single child on that road and I was invited back to facilitate the programme the following year. The lesson those children taught me that afternoon shifted my paradigm about how to go about executing my role as a leader and a parent.

Transitioning into our first leadership role

I want to talk about making the transition into our first leadership role, share some leadership paradigms that have been effective for me and point out some pitfalls that may hold us back or catch us out.

When we make the transition from being an individual contributor in an organisation to being a supervisor or team leader, the nature of our role changes significantly. The supervisor, team leader or manager title is not just a badge of honour or reward for being a good contributor or for length of service. It indicates that our role has changed, to put it very simply, from doing stuff to getting stuff done through others. The way in which we deliver value to our organisation changes and our paradigms and actions need to change too.

Like most changes we experience, the challenging aspect of this is as much about letting go of the old as it is about embracing the new. We must stop doing the stuff we know well, are good at and feel comfortable delivering, and start doing other stuff that's new to us, we're not yet good at, and that may feel uncomfortable.

Sometimes the transition is made harder because we're asked to continue doing some of our old role at the same time as stepping into our new position. Whatever the exact circumstances when we're appointed to one of these positions, we're made responsible for some of our colleagues and expected to lead them to contribute effectively towards the goals of our department and wider organisation.

In the story I just shared, my position shifted literally from leading from the front and hoping to bring them all on the journey with me to explaining where we wanted to go and then following at an appropriate distance and being ready to lend a hand only when needed.

On reflection, I possibly took this approach of leading from the back too far in my earlier years as a sales manager, at least in the eyes of some of my sales team. The piece of the puzzle that I was missing at that time was that people don't know what they don't know.

My role was not just to help them become good at their jobs, but also to wade in and bring some of my experience where they didn't have it yet. Except ironically, I didn't have the experience to know that. At the time, I was working hard at stepping away from being an individual contributor and had embraced my role as a leader. On occasion, I stepped too far away from getting involved and contributing when it would have been helpful to them.

Last week I shared my paradigm that leaders should do the work only they can do. How does this resonate with you? How would you rate yourself at delegating?

Do you cultivate an air of having plenty of capacity to take on more responsibility by developing and allowing your team to be on top of as much as possible?

Or do you relish being involved in everything, having a say in every decision and appearing to be the busiest person in the organisation?