Leadership Is A Self Fulfilling Prophecy

I had a conversation with one of my best clients the other day, his name is Jack

Jack is in charge of a 12 person team

Jack was complaining ..

"I can never get anything done"

"My people are so lazy, incompetent and unmotivated"

"They can never do anything right"

"They aren't motivated to do anything"

"I have to micromanage everything they do"

"They won't do anything until I tell them exactly what to do .. how to do it .. when to do it"

Well Jack .. I can tell how frustrated you are.

It must be really stressful for you.

"It's very stressful"

"I'm really starting to hate my job and my team"

Jack, let me ask you a question.

Did you hire lazy, incompetent and unmotivated people?

"Of course I didn't!"

Then why are you treating them that way?

Jack, I'm going to be honest with you.

Leadership is tough ... it's the hardest part of the job.

I have good news and I have bad news.

The good news is that leadership is a self fulfilling prophecy.

The bad news is that leadership is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Huh .. Jack said.

What does that even mean .. that makes no sense.

Well jack .. when you micromanage people .. you demotivate them .. they stop thinking and let you make all the decisions.

The more you micromanage the more demotivated your team becomes.

Until you get to the point that the team will just sit there and do nothing until you tell them exactly what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

So when failure occurs .. they can say to you .. I was just following your instructions. 

By micromanaging your people .. you make all the decisions and you solve all the problems.

Jack, where this starts to break is when you have a dynamic situation that is changing quickly.

For example lets say that each one of your people has 3 problems and you have 12 people.

That's 36 problems you have to solve, if each problem takes an hour to solve .. that's 36 hours of work that you have to do.

That's fine if your people only have 3 problems to solve every week.

In a dynamic and chaotic environment that is changing quickly where your people have 3 problems to solve every hour .. well .. you will fail and fail quickly.

36 problems to solve every hour and it takes you one hour to solve each problem.

Jack, if you treat people like responsible and professional adults they will act like responsible and professional adults.

If you treat people like children, they will act like children.

Jack, here are a few concepts that I think can really help you, we can talk more about this later.

Commanders Intent

The 4 Laws Of Combat

The 4 Disciplines of execution

Jack this isn't a magical formula where you can wave a magic wand and sprinkle pixie dust on your team and fix all your problems.

Leadership isn't like getting your flu shot once a year, it takes hard work, discipline and honest communication.

It's a daily practice that you do every day.

Now jack, there will be mistakes made by your team.  

That's how the team learns, it's your job to train them. 

Jack, I know your favorite team is the New England Patriots.

Do you think Tom Brady is going to try a risky play that they have never practiced before with 2 minutes left in the 4th quarter down by a touchdown?

Of course he isn't, they are going to run a play that everyone knows and has practiced dozens of times.

Jack, how often do you have football practice? How often do you train your team as a team?

"We don't have time for that .. we have too much to do"

The play doesn't always work, but that doesn't mean it's a bad play .. maybe the team just needs a little bit more practice.

Jack, have you ever been too busy driving to stop and get gas?

We both laughed, because he's called me more than once to pick him up when he ran out of gas.

Jack you can't do this all by yourself, you need a team around you.

You need a team to block while you throw the football.