Building leaders at every level
photo courtesy of Pasha Kalachev
It’s 11:52pm, and you close your laptop. You’ve been working all day, trying to move the needle on a critical metric, and you are completely stumped. You’ve talked to your number two, the global and regional leaders, and everyone agrees; nothing can be done. But have you talked to the people who can actually make a difference?
In the aftermath of the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, large portions of the city were damaged and actively dangerous. This posed a problem for the regional VP of a snack company and his truck drivers. Inside the damaged neighborhoods, 80% of stores selling his product were closed. He - and his drivers – knew they were in trouble.
Instead of bracing for cuts, the VP decided to try something a little different. He invited the drivers to join an improvement team, and found that they had a wealth of untapped knowledge about the stores to which they delivered. The team decided to shift from a fixed delivery schedule to a dynamic approach. They monitored stores, delivering as needed, responding quickly to support increased sales. This allowed them to respond to stores just outside of the damage, which were doing twice their normal amount of sales. That quarter, the region actually reached 80% of their business goals, while saving over 80% of the route drivers’ jobs.
The VP’s solution was simple: ask the people who are doing the work to improve it. He trusted his delivery truck drivers to have the knowledge needed to solve the problem, and worked with them to align their ideas with the organization’s needs. As his story shows, leadership – and critical solutions – can happen at any level of a company.
In researching Ascent’s leadership capabilities, we’ve found that the work of leadership is driving results over the strategic long-term, through people. In other words, leadership is not just about the top person doing great work. It’s about using all of what you – and your employees bring to work. Imagine running an organization with leaders working at every level, increasing the scale and scope of business impact. Imagine an organization with leaders at every level, ready to strategize, align and respond together as needed. The gain is extraordinary.
It’s easy to get tangled up in who to develop, or how and when to develop. For now, keep it simple: pick a problem that people care about at multiple levels, and invite them to solve it. By co-designing solutions with the people doing the work, you’ll see untapped, potential leaders step forward – including people who can get overlooked by a typical leadership development approach.
So why isn’t everyone doing this? Well, you’d need a few things:
· Start with trust. Trust your people to work with you, to have solutions that you need, and to work with you to implement them. Build mutual trust.
· Know and appreciate what people bring. Knowledge and wisdom to build solutions can come from anywhere, and solutions are often local. Look for what people bring, and use it!
· Get ready to experiment! Be open to trying something new, and by trying small tests of change, you minimize risk and maximize learning. If it fails, then you’ve learned something – while building capacity and trust in your potential leaders. Use data to tell you if a test worked, and to drive your team’s learning. (For more on working with teams, see our post, Teaming Up.)
· Don’t just empower - invite people to lead. To borrow a phrase from our Diversity & Inclusion work, there’s a difference from being invited to the party and being asked to dance. Go beyond giving your employees a chance to try their ideas. Invite them to lead the work, and be ready to develop their capacity to do so effectively.
Even the greatest leaders started out as basic workers. Take the time to get to know your people, and encourage your managers to do the same. The sooner you can find and develop latent leaders, the greater the impact on your company, your employees, and even you. Leading a team of empowered leaders to tackle strategic issues can be a thrill like no other.
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It’s 11:52pm, and your laptop is closed. The answer you are looking for isn’t in your head, and your executives are stumped. Maybe it’s time to sit down with some truck drivers, and see if you can figure this one out - together.