Michael, thank you for a great post. I recently came back from a four month sabbatical from my consulting firm. It was incredibly gratified by the reaction of the team. While I didn’t use the explicit vocabulary of your post we did set up systems, procedures, and expectations that empower the team. We also practiced while I was around so that the transition to my departure was not jarring. Those steps have now set things up so that I can go start a new venture. Thank you for giving the context.
Yes, 100%. An example of practice... typically I would launch, develop and lead an important client meeting (training, new initiative launch or deliverable download). In the months prior to my time away, I was intentional about NOT going to the meeting. (that was easy) Harder was to have the discipline to prepare, coach the team in prep sessions, not saying "this how would do it", but engage with "have you thought about" or "what do you think would happen if..." Practice also included debriefs and getting real time feedback from the client. While I did not have Michael's vocabulary per se - I was seeking to lead as if I wouldn't survive and for those 4 months and now full time - I did perish. (No offense to those who really to or put in that position. My stakes and circumstances are way low in comparison.)
Michael, thank you for sharing your experience in the Army and in a large industrial company.
“When the officer died, his leadership didn’t.” This is a great sentence both in form and content.
What you say about being a good leader makes sense. The less needed you are, the more it means you have successfully ensured your team understands why things need to be done and have the skills, knowledge and motivation to carry on by themselves.
But I wonder to which extent this applies to more “creative” fields versus “execution-oriented” ones. I work in software development. I have a truly amazing manager who constantly introduces new technologies. They do share their knowledge, which is motivating to me because I’m learning a lot. But they spend so much time working and learning that they’re always one step ahead of the rest of the team. I don’t see how they can be made replaceable. Probably the same goes for any entrepreneur or company founder. And I guess you covered both the execution and creation aspects when you wrote: “I was and am proud of my teams who hardly notice I’m gone on vacation and yet are excited when I return so we can move the needle to a higher performance yet again.”
Great question It's not that they are perfectly replaceable. Maybe a better way to say it is that, like your manager, they improve the team so much that if they were to leave, the team will still perform highly for quite a while.
It opens a new topic on entropy. Your leader keeps adding energy to the team and so they have the momentum to "finish the engagement" with high performance. Yet over time, without them, entropy will set in and the performance decays.
This happened to my team when I left manufacturing. Their performance maintained for about 3 months, but without all that extra energy, soon it collapsed (but still not as bad as when I started)
Conversely, there are the other managers that never add that energy so their teams never overcome entropy and are in chaos.
As far as execution/ creation, I see no difference and I led my software teams the same as my manufacturing teams, design teams, and military teams. In fact, that's yet another good topic on how creativity is for all teams!!
Michael, thank you for a great post. I recently came back from a four month sabbatical from my consulting firm. It was incredibly gratified by the reaction of the team. While I didn’t use the explicit vocabulary of your post we did set up systems, procedures, and expectations that empower the team. We also practiced while I was around so that the transition to my departure was not jarring. Those steps have now set things up so that I can go start a new venture. Thank you for giving the context.
Love it. And the leaderships skills required to set all that up is true leadership in my opinion.
Love the idea of practicing. I assume it led you to improve some of the procedures.
Yes, 100%. An example of practice... typically I would launch, develop and lead an important client meeting (training, new initiative launch or deliverable download). In the months prior to my time away, I was intentional about NOT going to the meeting. (that was easy) Harder was to have the discipline to prepare, coach the team in prep sessions, not saying "this how would do it", but engage with "have you thought about" or "what do you think would happen if..." Practice also included debriefs and getting real time feedback from the client. While I did not have Michael's vocabulary per se - I was seeking to lead as if I wouldn't survive and for those 4 months and now full time - I did perish. (No offense to those who really to or put in that position. My stakes and circumstances are way low in comparison.)
This is a good Substack. Nice to discover it!
Thanks!
Michael, thank you for sharing your experience in the Army and in a large industrial company.
“When the officer died, his leadership didn’t.” This is a great sentence both in form and content.
What you say about being a good leader makes sense. The less needed you are, the more it means you have successfully ensured your team understands why things need to be done and have the skills, knowledge and motivation to carry on by themselves.
But I wonder to which extent this applies to more “creative” fields versus “execution-oriented” ones. I work in software development. I have a truly amazing manager who constantly introduces new technologies. They do share their knowledge, which is motivating to me because I’m learning a lot. But they spend so much time working and learning that they’re always one step ahead of the rest of the team. I don’t see how they can be made replaceable. Probably the same goes for any entrepreneur or company founder. And I guess you covered both the execution and creation aspects when you wrote: “I was and am proud of my teams who hardly notice I’m gone on vacation and yet are excited when I return so we can move the needle to a higher performance yet again.”
Great question It's not that they are perfectly replaceable. Maybe a better way to say it is that, like your manager, they improve the team so much that if they were to leave, the team will still perform highly for quite a while.
It opens a new topic on entropy. Your leader keeps adding energy to the team and so they have the momentum to "finish the engagement" with high performance. Yet over time, without them, entropy will set in and the performance decays.
This happened to my team when I left manufacturing. Their performance maintained for about 3 months, but without all that extra energy, soon it collapsed (but still not as bad as when I started)
Conversely, there are the other managers that never add that energy so their teams never overcome entropy and are in chaos.
As far as execution/ creation, I see no difference and I led my software teams the same as my manufacturing teams, design teams, and military teams. In fact, that's yet another good topic on how creativity is for all teams!!
Thanks for the great thoughts!