FACILITATIVE LEADERSHIP

The role of the facilitative leader has become more and more necessary with the recent paring of staffs and overall reduction of resources, to cut costs. The days of having large staffs where some of the group contributed significantly more than others are becoming obsolete, driven by leaner staffing, particularly in the management ranks.

Let’s first define facilitative leadership, then point out a few of the key characteristics that make for a successful facilitative leader.

Facilitative leadership is the art of using the role of a leader to engineer and maximize the human assets at your disposal. In short, maximize your assets.

Be it in sports, or business, or even war, it is the team that wins most often, not the individual. Thus, no matter how good or even great the talent of the individual leader, they will not achieve ultimate success by trying to do it all on their own.

Try to keep these five simple guidelines in mind as you identify or try yourself, to maximize your contributions to the organization as a whole.

One, a facilitative leader IS NOT hands-on. Leading by example does not mean doing the job yourself. When you immerse yourself in the minutia of the day-to-day, you are not able to see the big picture and help the organization prepare for future opportunities and challenges. More importantly, when you are immersed, you are eliminating an asset. Either you or the person whose role you are assuming are not being utilized to the proper extent.

Second, a good facilitator spends a great deal of time helping others to focus on or not lose focus of, the mutual goal. There is no winning if the team does not win. Too frequently, managers spend an exorbitant amount of time squabbling over issues that have nothing to do with reaching the end goal. A facilitative leader steps in and helps ALL focus on the common objective.

Third, an excellent facilitative leader will encourage the individuals in the group to step out on a limb. Far too many managers spend a great deal of time checking the work of their employees so there are no mistakes. Let the group make mistakes. They will learn faster and it will help both of you build trust. I am not saying to let someone sink the ship, but letting them steer a little off course once in a while, is VERY healthy. This is probably one of the most difficult steps for a mature facilitative leader to take, but think about it like this. What if we never let a child fall? If you watch a child, they fall, they fall again, eventually they need no assistance and are walking faster and with more purpose than we could have imagined.

Which brings me to four. Provide direction and let them surprise you with their ingenuity. Not my original quote. George Patton’s. We frequently think of Patton as hard headed and tough. He was, in fact, very well known for providing a clear direction of where he wanted to go, and letting his junior officers and soldiers take the group further than Patton himself could have envisioned. This is one of the cornerstones of innovation. Unlocking the opportunity for your people to show you that they may very well be able to do the job MUCH better than you. Think for a minute about this example. Someone at some point, showed Pele how to kick a soccer ball. Fortunately they did not limit him by saying, “No, no. You kick it THIS way.”

Last, a facilitative leader encourages their team to call out and help identify when the facilitative leader is missing their own objectives.

This will build trust between the members of the team, and again when this occurs you are TRULY utilizing the assets in your group.

This last action may be a bit hard on the ego initially, but it provides an open door for feedback, that alone will save the facilitative hundreds of hours a year in digging for answers and information.

A facilitative leader is like a conductor, they make the sum of the parts deliver a far greater product, than the individual pieces.