Your Role as Leader

When I was first promoted into the role of team leader I did what many new leaders do. I failed.?

I didn’t fail by the numbers — my team was productive and did good work — but I did fail to keep my cool, my sense of balance and also failed to keep my gut free of ulcers. I was stressed, intense and would often jump in and do the work for a struggling member of my team. So I was also overwhelmed and working incredibly long hours.?

This all changed when I found myself leading a team whose work I didn’t fully understand. This new team was highly technical and specialized and I was a designer by training. I couldn’t jump in to help even if I wanted to. I could barely understand the problems they were having — if a team member had come to me asking me for a flux capacitor I’d have probably started working on a purchase order for one.??

So I had to learn to lead in a new way. Not as a supped-up individual contributor but as an actual team leader.

General Stanley McChrystal faced a similar challenge when he was put in charge of US forces in Afghanistan. He realized that his training had been all about following a rigid chain of command. This worked well in combat between two superpowers with an organized military. But he now faced a distributed enemy. One that did not have a chain of command but instead was organized around autonomous and loosely connected cells that were unpredictable, resilient and dangerous.?

McChrystal began to organize his forces into a team of teams (which is the title of his book) and he also began to break down the rigid chain-of-command providing more autonomy and agency at the ground level.?

Both McChrystal and my problems were quite different, but we both were searching for a new way to think about our roles — a new metaphor.?

For McChristal the new metaphor for leader was that of a gardener — someone who tended the soil, provided nutrients, and then let the plants grow. This was in contrast with the traditional chess master leader who micromanages his pieces one at a time.?

When I heard his framing I realized that this was how I had solved the problem of leadership.

The gardener-as-leader idea is that your job is to create the conditions for success but not force it. In the Talmud it is written that “Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, ‘Grow, grow.’” So your job is to figure out what these angels like and attract them to your team.

90% of your work will likely be providing nutrients to your team — tools, information, direction and time. If a group of skilled people have these then they are likely to do well and may even become self managing. But there is another crucial 10% or so that teams cannot provide for themselves.

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If you're curious to improve your "gardening" skills, please join my 5-week cohort-based class starting Jan. 26. Application & info available here.