Individual responsibility - Where do we draw the line?

A little late but as its the first newsletter of 2024, Happy New Year! ??

I hope you all had a restful break and are looking forward to the year ahead.

This month I am posing a question which I do not have a simple answer to.

Where do we draw the line between a caring, proactive, even occasionally paternalistic management & leadership style versus encouraging individuals to take full responsibility for their own actions and outcomes?

I'll be honest, I'm conflicted.

When I am giving personal advice, mentorship, coaching etc. I will focus on self-responsibility. My message is that we are the makers of our own destiny, and come success or failure we are the ones who have the power to act and influence what comes next.

Thinking that anyone else holds that responsibility only disempowers us and leaves us at the whim of others.

I believe that is always true.

However, as a leader, my natural instinct is to work hard for others, to ensure they are on the right path and taking the right actions that will lead to their, their team's and the company's, success.

To remind you as to why I am writing this newsletter;

I am writing a series on why employee engagement at work (and general happiness) is so low, and more importantly what we do about it. I have written a general overview of this and now I'm working through individual topics.

So, if we come at this from the aim of trying to improve engagement and therefore productivity and happiness, the answer to my question is not obvious.

Most people, most of the time are keen to be in control of their own lives, to feel in control of their destiny, to have autonomy in their work. Therefore encouraging self-reliance, encouraging individuals to take responsibility for their own outcomes is aligned with delivering what people want.

However, despite wanting this in theory, the reality does require a high degree of motivation and resilience. Taking full responsibility for your outcomes is going to require actively seeking knowledge, taking action and learning through failure. Many people struggle to maintain that motivation through failure, everyone's resilience has an eventual limit.

This is where the more active management style comes in, can you guide people, acting as the safety barriers, the guide rail, within which they can learn and grow with enough 'safety' such that their motivation and resilience levels don't get tested to destruction.

Broadly speaking this should exist on a spectrum, for those early in their career, vulnerable or struggling for some reason, the safety barriers will be very close together and the leaderships style may be very paternalistic, however as people grow in knowledge and confidence the safety barriers get pulled further and further apart until they are effectively invisible, and the norm for maximising success is self-responsibility.

The reason I am conflicted is that everyone will be at different places on this spectrum and people won't just move forwards on it, sometimes they will slip back, so there is never going to be a fixed answer.

I think the goal is to aspire to a team of people that can take full responsibility for their own actions and outcomes, but to acknowledge that to achieve this many will need proactive support to reach that stage of maturity, and some may never fully reach it.

My experience tells me that this is nuanced and complex which is why I firmly disagree when firms, usually larger ones, train a set management 'process' that is very one size fits all.

We should instead train our leaders, from an early stage, in the management, communication and EQ skills required to understand where each individual is at, what they need to in order to grow and what style should therefore be applied to enable that to happen.

This will require an increase in time and money invested in the development of leadership skills, however the ROI on leadership is huge.

Every problem can be tied back to ineffectual leadership, great leadership leads to the solutions ??

Please share this if you feel it is of value and I'll get working on next months edition!

If you ever want to discuss any of the topics raised drop me a line.

AND FINALLY - Book tip for the month:

'Same as Ever' Morgan Housel - If you want to achieve different results you need to think differently to how you have before. This thought provoking book may well get you thinking differently. Enjoy!

Have a great month! ??