Sometimes leaving people alone is key to successful leadership
 

Sally P. was overworked, burned-out, stressed and exhausted—the whole nine yards. That’s why her boss asked me to talk to her to see if I could help. It didn’t take long to discover the truth. Sally routinely stayed at her desk until 9.00 or 10.00 p.m., though she started work before 8.00 in the morning.

“What do you do?” I asked her.

“All day I’m busy with meetings, customers and staff matters,” she told me. “It’s madness. I only get to do the stuff I need to do after everyone else goes home. Even then I need to spend hours checking everything has been done correctly. Sorting out tomorrow’s schedule. That kind of thing.”

What it came down to was this. Sally checked all the work her subordinates did, even down to correcting typos in their reports and re-ordering “faulty” priorities. When I suggested this was a waste of her time, she got angry.

“Not at all,” she said. “It’s essential. You’ve no idea the mistakes I find. It would be dreadful to let things like that slip past.”

“And what do you say to your people?” I asked.

“Well, I tell them, naturally. Sometimes I get cross with them.”

“And…? Have things changed?”

“Not really. I mean, you can’t get good people today, can you?”

When bosses interfere

Sally’s staff didn’t check their own mistakes because they knew she would do it anyway. They didn’t change because she treated them like naughty children, so that’s how they saw themselves. Besides, they knew she didn’t trust them to do better, so why bother?

Organizations are full of pointless activities that are only needed because nobody trusts anybody else. Full of people who can’t delegate; who have to attend pointless meetings, in case something is said or decided behind their backs; who have to double check and edit their subordinates’ work, because they don’t trust them to do it properly; and who have to devote time to regular boot-licking, because they suspect no one trusts them either.

Yet these same employees who aren’t trusted to behave reasonably in working hours are apparently worthy to choose a government, act on school boards and in positions of public trust, bring up children, handle their own finances and fight and die for their country.

If you pay peanuts, the saying goes, you get monkeys. If you treat employees like naughty children or incipient criminals, that’s pretty much what they’ll become—at least during working hours. And you’ll be like Sally: overworked, stressed, burned-out and neurotic—the typical image of today’s version of Organization Man.

A lesson from a master gardener

My father was a wonderful gardener. His garden was the envy of the neighbors, and the food he grew kept our family supplied with fruit and vegetables year-round. The secret of his success with plants was simple. He made sure the soil was in good condition, planted at the right time, kept the weeds in check—then left the plants to grow.

“Neglect ’em a bit,” he used to tell me. “Don’t be fussing around too much. Plants thrive on a bit of neglect.”

Good leaders and managers do the same as my father. They practice benign neglect. The idiots who cause problems are always fussing around their staff, probing and peering and interfering with them doing their jobs. They’re like children who plant a few seeds and want to dig them up the next day to see if they’re growing. You can forgive children; adults should know better.

‘Benign Neglect’

One of the best ways to help your people find success and develop themselves is to do what my father did. Make sure they have the right conditions—the authority, the resources, the training and clear direction; start them off at the right time—when they’re ready for the challenge; and then let them get on with it. It’s their job, not yours. If they’re busy, you don’t need to be. Neglect them a little. Do your own work.

A major part of that work should be keeping down the weeds. Keep others away from interfering with your people’s jobs. Cut down unnecessary demands. Pull up useless meetings and slice off pointless reports. Weeds like that can choke any hope of good results. Be ruthless. Clear a space for your team to thrive and grow.

What’s most often missing from people’s working lives is time and space to do their job and develop as they should—plus the sense that the boss will let them get on with it, unless they call for help. Benign neglect works. It shows you trust them. It shows you believe in their commitment and ability. Plants thrive on a bit of neglect and so do people. Try it.

Technorati Tags: leadership, micromanagement, micromanagers, bad bosses, benign neglect, development, trust

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