Today we’re going to talk about Principle One of Intent Based Leadership
Leaders tune the level of control they grant the team to the team’s competence and clarity. We’re going to illustrate that with fig. 1a.
On the vertical axis we have Control. Control is the ability to make decisions. You can think about it also as empowerment. Higher up, the team has more authority. Down low, the boss retains all the decision making authority.
On the horizontal axis we have competence and clarity.
Competence is the technical part of my job. And clarity is the purpose or why or what we’re trying to achieve.
So in any particular situation, the job of the leader is to tune how much control he or she is giving the team to the team’s competence and clarity.
If you give too much control, or you’ve given more decision making ability to the team than is warranted by their competence and clarity, then they’re going to make bad decisions. We call this “chaos.” It’s the fear of every leader trying to execute an empowerment program.
On the other hand, if we play it too safe, and the team doesn’t have the ability to make decisions that are warranted by the training and the understanding that they have, then that’s “frustration.”
When we poll organizations, 63% of people say they’re down here in the frustration zone. You probably have the ability to just give a little bit more control without even doing anything in competence and clarity.
Your job as a leader is to tune the level of control to the team’s competence and clarity.
I’m David Marquet and that’s your Leadership Nudge.
