“Control only works when you know what you’re doing. Leadership works when you don’t."

This phrase from David Marquet’s book ‘Turn the ship around’ encapsulates the essence of what he calls the leader, leader Model of leadership. Something that has always been at the forefront of my beliefs of what leadership should be. The book is focused on consciously moving away from centralized decision making to a more empowered and informed decision making throughout the team. A real leader will not be fazed about not having all the answers or working with the premise of control but about empowering others to lead especially in complex situations completely unfamiliar to them. Closer to home, In my organization, in order to make the onboarding of senior leaders who are joining the team more engaging, we share with them a host of books handpicked based on their alignment with our organizations culture. This specific book caught my attention, and although this leadership style of enabling employees to think and act like leaders is not alien to me, what struck me when I flipped to the last page was that if done right, this leadership style has the capacity to completely transform employee performance.

And that’s why it’s the topic of my article today, I want to talk about this very old notion of leadership that has been the mainstay of conventional hierarchies where the leader is expected to have all the right answers such as in the military or even in our corporate world. The notion works on the premise that the leader will save the day. This is the result of years and years of authoritative leadership which only creates a bunch of passive dependent subordinates who simply just stop thinking and fall in line. Of course, much to our relief in recent times this has slowly begun to change. I am a strong proponent of the quote that “You don’t hire smart people and tell them what to do, you hire smart people so that they can tell you what to do.” We are now seeing a huge contrast between traditional leadership styles that often have suppressed initiatives and modern philosophies.

“You don’t hire smart people and tell them what to do, you hire smart people so that they can tell you what to do.”

In the book David Marquet, a former U.S. Navy submarine captain, shares his journey of transforming his leadership style when he was assigned to lead the USS Santa Fe, a submarine he wasn’t familiar with. Instead of trying to be the all-knowing hero who directs every move, he realized that empowering the crew was a better way to improve performance. He introduced a “leader-leader” model instead of the traditional “leader-follower” one, where each member of the team is empowered to think and act like a leader.

The underlying principle of this concept is that there is great value in empowering our subordinates to become more accountable thereby encouraging a culture that everyone feels a part of. It inculcates a sense of ownership and brings about a different level of engagement within the team.

One key element that had me right at the start was the fact that this leader leader model is a dramatic shift from the heroic concept of a ‘One Man Show’ where the leaders singular decision making capabilities drives the team to phenomenal success, almost making it sound like very few people are gifted with leadership and only those few people have the capability to become leaders, when in truth, in the same breath we say ‘ Leaders are made, not born’ contradictory isn’t it ?

That’s why I was immediately drawn to the structure that boasts of the fact that leadership is a shared responsibility not to be hoarded for singular glory by a leader.

Now, while I have already stated my own affinity for and strong belief in this model of empowerment and how it has the potential to enhance team productivity and growth, I also want to share the various thoughts that crossed my mind each time I flipped a page of this enlightening book. 

Even though empowerment promises to be the antidote for dependency and disengagement, I find that it does have its place and time. It’s not the one stop shop for all employee engagement, productivity and staff performance issues. Infact, I see that it has to be ‘used with caution’. Some areas that I have seen it work wonders are where extensive technical expertise might lie with the employee and not the leader. It might be best to allow employees to use their judgement to take prudent and informed decisions in scenarios like these. Also, in fast paced operational environments, situations may benefit best when the employee has the necessary authority to take decisions making for a more agile and responsive environment which is the call of the hour. Also, in my own experience I have noticed that customer facing roles really benefit from this kind of arrangement as it helps employees take a call to personalize a service for a customer as long as it’s within the acceptable boundaries.

One pertinent example of a great use case of an empowering environment is in my own company FundyPros’ where empowerment has been a long-standing practice well before I was even part of it and it has shown tremendous results over the years fostering a great amount of trust within the teams. We are very focused on developing our future leaders and this is done by finding ways to create internal talent pipelines to empower, encourage and provide a learning environment for employees to grow, hone their leadership skills and transition into the more senior roles that they have the capability to occupy. If they were not suitably empowered, they wouldn’t feel the ownership and accountability that they do to be fully engaged in decision making in their respective areas. Today, the next in line are highly empowered individuals who are allowed to think, vocalize and decide. They have been provided ample opportunities to get a feel of what critical decision making is all about well before they formally occupied the role. Here I want to allude to my previous comment on how empowerment has the power to completely transform employee performance, I have watched it happen. It’s a great tool to give employees that sense of ownership and it has worked wonders for us.

Having made all these points however, I still want to revisit the fears of completely resorting to empowering all employees and employing a leader leader model. And my fears are not unfounded. While it can work when there is a level playing field and everyone on the team has an equally high level of competence and confidence in decision making (like on the submarine USS Santa Fe) it can be very hard to pull off in environments where quick decision making is imperative and relatively inexperienced team members are left floundering with having to take a call. Without the necessary perspective or experience it can be disastrous to quality and consistency in outcomes, whatever your business may be. These individuals may need more guidance before they can independently decide.

Another consideration of the ‘Use empowerment with caution’ case would be that without a central authority in place, differing viewpoints from empowered employees may make the work environment rife with conflict over what is the right course of action. Especially true for matrix organizations where competing priorities will create chaos and fragment the team’s direction and ultimately affect the alignment to company goals.

It can also lead to a lack of accountability, with no one at the helm of important decisions. It may make it difficult to track clear lines of responsibility, especially when the outcomes are not favourable, the blame game will begin. That’s probably the reason why so many organizations have ‘Accountability’ as one of their company’s values and for very good reason. Plus, I also think it may be lot of stress for individuals who may not be ready to think and act like a leader, it demands a leader like behaviour and puts added pressure on employees to perform at their highest level all the time. For younger employees who are still in their learning curve, or more seasoned employees who are content with non demanding jobs, empowerment might mean a heavy load to carry and not everyone might be ready to take that on and they may prefer structured guidance and find motivation in supporting roles instead.

So really, there is a lot to unpack when speaking of empowerment, while decentralization of decision making has its positives and employee engagement is a critical outcome, its efficacy cannot be found without considering team dynamics, the existing culture of the organization and the nature of the work as such. When experience levels vary it might work better to have a directive leadership style that guides and supports the employees who may work better with clarity and stability and bring about more optimal performance levels.

In summary, I would say a hybrid approach to leadership would be to combine empowerment and directive styles giving employees the autonomy they seek when they are relatively skilled while simultaneously offering the guidance to those needing the support. This approach fosters trust and ownership while at the same time provides the structure to employees still needing the expertise. This leadership approach or dual strategy will certainly help maximize team potential and build a culture of independence and support enhancing team effectiveness and overall alignment to team and company goals.