One guy is in charge. That means he gathered the individuals on the team, organized the schedule and lobbied the executive suite for a reasonable budget. Yet three weeks into the project there is little actual progress towards the goal of a proposal and presentation that will win the contract. Why?
The guy in charge is not leading, he is doing. He wrote 36 slides from a vision that exists only in his head. Then he used up three hours to show us the slides and tell us his thought processes. A week later he sent a revised deck that still had most of the slides we all disliked--and that we agreed to ditch.
Leadership starts with setting out a clear path for the group and facilitating a conversation about the way to reach the goal. It is big picture discussions that may take a while--which is time and money well spent. Then the leader passes the plan to expert "do-ers"--in this case, people with expertise taking concepts and ideas and creating visuals that reflect those ideas.
Leadership is more about letting others do the work than anything else. The leader serves as a resource for the implementers. The leader is a sounding board, a devil's advocate, a guardian of the eventual goal. When leaders get into the doing, they lose the big picture and vision and then have no way to provide leadership.
The next time you're offered or assigned a leadership role, be sure you understand what it means and that others also understand it exactly the same way. Leaders who do become ineffective at leading, and the group or team loses its way, often at great expense and disappointment.
How do you define leadership? Share your ideas through our comment link.
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