Leadership success: Shift from control to collaboration

By Paul Falcone

Congratulations on becoming a people manager. Now comes the challenge of transitioning from individual contributor to manager. As you continue your leadership journey, watch out for one behavior that can hold you back from success: control.

When transitioning to a leadership role, it’s natural to want to gain control of your team’s work. However, you risk micromanaging if you give in to that tendency.

Change your mindset from control to collaboration

No one wants to work for a micromanager who focuses on tiny details and tries to dictate how every aspect of a task should be completed. If you become one, employee morale and productivity will likely plummet, and your staff will look for other jobs. The key to success is to adopt a collaborative team approach.

Leadership success is measured by team performance

Your staff members are closer to the work, clients and systems that make everything work smoothly. Your role is to offer guidance and let them do their best work. Encouraging team problem-solving skills improves motivation and engagement. Together, you can find new ways to tackle issues.

Work with your team to set expectations

Speak with your staff about what team performance should look like. Creating a RACI chart can head off confusion about roles and responsibilities. Together, you can define the following elements:

• Responsible: Who is working on and completing the task
• Accountable: Who has final authority for the task’s completion
• Consulted: Who needs to be consulted while the task is being completed
• Informed: Who needs to be kept informed about progress

Discuss when and how the team should escalate matters to you. Agree on expectations going forward and outline circumstances where they should run, not walk, to you. You need to know about critical issues so you and other leaders aren’t caught off-guard.

Discuss what success looks like. Is your team focused on projects contributing to business success, or are they bogged down with nonproductive assignments? Are there realistic milestones and timeframes for completing projects? As their leader, it’s your responsibility to help clear roadblocks.

Cover the details

Be sure to include discussions about productivity (volume), quality, safety, customer turnaround time, cross-collaboration with other departments and other factors important to team success. Identify hot-button items that need special attention. If there are tensions with other departments, take a problem-solving approach and don’t let team members gripe about other people. Help your team keep a positive attitude so they’ll stay motivated.

Encourage your team to excel

As you gain confidence in your role, look for ways to innovate. Schedule lunch-and-learns or short meetings to discuss ideas. If members disagree on different ways to tackle issues, encourage them to discuss their ideas respectfully. Debate can be healthy. Share best practices and ask your team members to share theirs. Does your staff have new approaches for addressing areas of concern? Are team members good candidates for becoming subject-matter experts in specific areas of expertise?

Allow for failure

It can be difficult to let employees fail, but resist the temptation to step in. People generally learn more from failure than success. Of course, you’ll want to monitor critical projects and avoid disasters, but give your team the freedom to try new approaches even though they won’t always be successful. Make it safe for your staff to fail by sharing your failures and encouraging them to share theirs. Remain calm when someone tells you they made a mistake. They trust you enough to be vulnerable, and you don’t want to lose their trust. Everyone makes mistakes. If you lose your temper, apologize immediately. You’re human, too. Admitting when you’re wrong sends your team a strong message that you have their backs.

Take a deep breath

Remember that it’s okay not to have all the answers when your manager catches you off-guard about a project’s status. Tell them you’ll look into their question and respond as soon as you have the most up-to-date information. This approach works unless you’re reporting to a micromanager. In that case, work with your boss to develop a reporting system for communicating project updates.

Remember that for a smooth transition to a leadership role, your performance is measured by your team’s success. Collaborating with your team will improve motivation and engagement.

Paul Falcone (www.PaulFalconeHR.com) is principal of Paul Falcone Workplace Leadership Consulting, LLC. Find the full list of his books at Amazon.com/author/paulfalcone. Subscribe to his YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@paulfalconeHR.