The Guru Nation Blog

Here’s the big issue on the table! Too many people over-manage and under-lead. It happens because there isn’t enough clarity on leadership versus management.

It’s confusing because most leaders want to solve problems, provide choices, find answers, and avoid a lack of clarity. In reality, they should re-visit their leadership versus management approach and challenge others to find solutions, ask teams to provide effective choices, encourage employees to find answers, and delegate authority to establish clear direction.

The leadership versus management concept gives a leader the opportunity to create a development plan for every person on the team. Each person’s development should not be arbitrary. With a mindset of “which employee could benefit most from this assignment?” as a process for grooming, a leader can in fact “lead” someone to higher productivity and capability versus manage the task for them. The process also requires proper briefing, so your team doesn’t mis-understand you intentions. No one should feel you’re handing off work just because you don’t have time for it!

The debate goes on. Judith Glaser in her book Creating We and Cy Wakeman, (executive coach) in her recent interview on The Guru Nation both addressed tenets of leadership versus management. Judith discussed lowering the bar to get greater performance from certain employees instead of trying to manage things for them, and encouraging “we” conversations that create collaborative leadership. Cy Wakeman suggested that over-managing and under-leading was a tendency all too familiar in most companies because managers learn “to do” or “to tell” versus learning “to ask” or “to acknowledge.”  Both women argue quite passionately that leadership versus management is about calling your employees to a standard of excellence, holding them accountable for great achievement, and supporting them to find meaningful engagement.

Facilitative leadership requires a leap of intention and direction.
If your intention is to provide true leadership training and development for your team, then you have to leap into a facilitative leadership mindset that uses delegation as a development tool, not a “dumping ground” for tasks you don’t have time for. Delegation becomes core to the facilitative leadership effort, and asks that you begin to use your work to develop and teach others.

How can facilitative leadership make a difference? And how can you decide what to delegate?
According to Cy Wakeman, an executive coach who works with large teams of people inside of Fortune 500 companies, facilitative leadership can help to raise the capability level of anyone on your team. Cy suggests the following:

1.    Delegate work that can specifically bring about growth. Don’t deprive your employees of the development opportunities they crave.
2.    Delegate what you would not pay yourself to do. In evaluating the best use of your time, you can determine what to delegate. What you assign to others should facilitate their learning while giving you time to focus on the things that need your keen attention.
3.    Delegate by thinking big. The most effective facilitative leadership looks at the large canvas of possibilities for our teams and facilitates learning by assigning “big” in order to enhance skill development and learning.
4.    Delegate with a growth plan in place. Smart leaders don’t toss up work for the grab or give-away. They set up a strategic facilitation plan and track results.

When facilitative leadership is used effectively, leaders will challenge employees to use best talents and develop more quickly. But it’s not always easy to effect.  Today’s leaders still drift back to the “over manage and under lead” scenario because it’s familiar. Here’s where the leap comes in. With just a slight mindset shift, you can leap to a facilitative leadership platform and “dive” into developing your human resources by simply reframing how and when you delegate.