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You may be able to “buy” a person’s back with a paycheck, position, power, or fear, but a human being’s genius, passion, loyalty, and tenacious creativity are volunteered only. The world’s greatest problems will be solved by passionate, unleashed “volunteers.” My definition of leadership is this:
The leader-leader structure is fundamentally different from the leader-follower structure. At its core is the belief that we can all be leaders and, in fact, it’s best when we all are leaders. Leadership is not some mystical quality that some possess and others do not. As humans, we all have what it takes, and we all need to use our leadership abilities in every aspect of our work life.
Our greatest struggle is within
How has failure shaped you?
how I aspired to be as a leader and how I actually was.
reaction to the fact that we had actively disempowered people. Additionally, it seemed inherently contradictory to have an empowerment program whereby I would empower my subordinates and my boss would empower me. I felt my power came from within, and attempts to empower me felt like manipulation.
the way I was told to manage others was not the way I wanted to be managed. I felt I was at my best when given specific goals but broad latitude in how to accomplish them. I didn’t respond well to executing a bunch of tasks. In fact, being treated that way irritated me and caused me to shut my brain down.
competence could not rest solely with the leader.
The leadership structure, which was strongly reinforced by the behavior and expectations of the captain, was one of “Do what you are told.” Hence, my efforts amounted to little more than “Do what you are told, but . . .” It just didn’t work.
One of the things that limits our learning is our belief that we already know something.
Simply exhorting people to be proactive, take ownership, be involved, and all the other aspects of an empowerment program just scratched the surface.
If they did anything for the long run it was because of an enlightened sense of duty, not because there was anything in the system that rewarded them for it. We didn’t associate an officer’s leadership effectiveness with how well his unit performed after he left. We didn’t associate an officer’s leadership effectiveness with how often his people got promoted two, three, or four years hence. We didn’t even track that kind of information. All that mattered was performance in the moment.
Are they rewarded for the success of their people?
When an organization does worse immediately after the departure of a leader, what does this say about that person’s leadership? How does the organization view this situation?
How does the perspective of time horizon affect our leadership actions?
What are you willing to personally risk? (Sometimes taking a step for the better requires caring/not caring. Caring deeply about the people and mission, but not caring about the bureaucratic consequences to your personal career.)
What must leaders overcome mentally and emotionally to give up control yet retain full responsibility?
What’s the hardest thing you experience in letting go of micromanaging, top-down leadership, ...
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Do you give employees specific goals as well as the freedom to meet them in any way they choose?
What are the things you are hoping I don’t change? What are the things you secretly hope I do change? What are the good things about Santa Fe we should build on? If you were me what would you do first? Why isn’t the ship doing better? What are your personal goals for your tour here on Santa Fe?
What impediments do you have to doing your job? What will be our biggest challenge to getting Santa Fe ready for deployment? What are your biggest frustrations about how Santa Fe is currently run? What is the best thing I can do for you?
Do people want to change, or are they comfortable with the current level of performance? Are things too comfortable?
If a snapshot of your business went viral on the Internet, what would it reveal about your workers?
You are destined to fail. No matter how good you get at avoiding mistakes, you will always have errors on something as complex as a submarine.
In the same vein, success is a negative, an absence of failure, avoidance of a critique or an incident.
Focusing on avoiding mistakes takes our focus away from becoming truly exceptional.
We would focus on exceptional operational effectiveness for the submarine. We would achieve great things.
ACHIEVE EXCELLENCE, DON’T JUST AVOID ERRORS is a mechanism for CLARITY. (The book to read is Simon Sinek’s Start with Why.)
Instead of trying to change mind-sets and then change the way we acted, we would start acting differently and the new thinking would follow.
First and foremost, the chiefs wanted to be in charge of their own men, and that meant putting them in charge of their men’s leave.
Many empowerment programs fail because they are just that, “programs” or “initiatives” rather than the central principle—the genetic code, if you will—behind how the organization does business. You can’t “direct” empowerment programs. Directed empowerment programs are flawed because they are predicated on this assumption: I have the authority and ability to empower you (and you don’t). Fundamentally, that’s disempowering.
How can you prepare your mid-level managers to shift from holding a “position of privilege” to one of “accountability, responsibility, and work”? What procedure or process can you change with one word that will give your mid-level managers more decision-making authority? When thinking about delegating control, what do you worry about?
What do you as a proponent of the leader-leader approach need to delegate to show you are willing to walk the talk?
I called this the paradox of “caring but not caring”—that is, caring intimately about your subordinates and the organization but caring little about the organizational consequences to yourself.
Is your staff spending time and money creating flawless charts and reports that are, simultaneously, irrelevant?
If we were excellent and prepared, the drills and inspections would take care of themselves.
Here is a short list of “empowered phrases” that active doers use: I intend to . . . I plan on . . . I will . . . We will . .
What causes us to take control when we should be giving control?
Can you recall a recent incident where your subordinate followed your order because he or she thought you had learned secret information “for executives only”?
RESIST THE URGE TO PROVIDE SOLUTIONS is a mechanism for CONTROL.
ELIMINATING TOP-DOWN MONITORING SYSTEMS is a mechanism for CONTROL.
(To see where we ended up, and for a more detailed process for conducting critiques, visit davidmarquet.com to read “How we learn from our mistakes on nuclear submarines: A seven-step process.”)
see and read
How effectively do you learn from mistakes?
If all you need to do is what you are told, then you don’t need to understand your craft. However, as your ability to make decisions increases, then you need intimate technical knowledge on which to base those decisions.
A certification is different from a brief in that during a certification, the person in charge of his team asks them questions.
briefing an action many times compensates for poor planning and that certification, which flows from the leader-leader approach, puts more work on management than leader-follower does because management needs not only to identify what near-term events will be accomplished but also the role each member of the team will be fulfilling.
when people know they will be asked questions they study their responsibilities ahead of time.
make sure the team knows that it’s a decision meeting about whether they are ready to accomplish the procedure. Yes, the costs of saying “we’re not ready” are high, but not as high as the costs of a bungled operation.
DON’T BRIEF, CERTIFY is a mechanism for COMPETENCE.
Certification is also a decision point. It is possible to fa...
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