(This article is not meant to start a
debate on parenting or what is right and what is wrong. Instead, it is
aimed at reflecting upon possibilities and expanding perspectives…)
Your team is preparing for an important
presentation – they have worked really hard on it and come up with a powerful
pitch and really good slides. They send the slides to you for review and your
inputs. You go through it and find it really good, shows the tenacity of your
team. However, you do believe if 2 or 3 slides are re-ordered, the overall
presentation would read better – what do you do?
Most of us would want to add our own value
and say ‘Really great presentation, I am impressed. However/but, if you change the order of slides 5 and 10, it would
read way better – that’s my only suggestion.’ Nothing wrong with this. Imagine,
if you instead said ‘Really great presentation, I am impressed. Let’s go with
it and win the pitch!’ What do you notice is the difference?
I would say the value added in the latter
case is priceless – you subtly empowered your team to own and be accountable
for the presentation! In the earlier case, the moment you say ‘however or but’,
you subconsciously diminished their power and their ownership in the overall picture
– have you noticed, the higher up you go in an organization, your suggestions automatically become orders to
be followed.
Then the scenario moves to the actual
presentation day… Your team member, your subject matter expert and you show up
for this important multi-million dollar pitch. Your team member, having taken
ownership, is expected to present and he is obviously nervous – stakes are
really high and he would rather his seniors present. That’s when you tell him –
‘Are you worried that you are armed only with a pistol and you are going into
war zone – don’t worry, in case you haven’t noticed, you have 2 high power
bazookas with you on either side of you. What more do you need?’ In the
presentation, you discover that your team member upgraded himself to a bazooka
and needed to use you and your expert only as rocket launchers. (This is a true
anecdote and if you identify this anecdote with yourself, yes, this is your
story!)
Have you ever noticed that giving ownership
and believing in a person is what extracts the best from him/her.
Sometimes the best example of leadership is
at home with our kids. Bringing up kids is never easy – there are too many
unknown aspects, too many ifs and buts and stakes are always too high. If I
were to say, empower your kids, what comes up?
As a simple example similar to the
presentation anecdote mentioned above, as a parent, have you ever ended up
taking the lead for your kids’ project(s)? Somewhere along the way, in the race to win, you suddenly find yourself
leading in your child’s project instead of supporting – stakes are too high.
Your child cannot fail and given the complexities of today’s projects, which
sometimes challenge even adults, the child is bound to fail - for sure other parents are 'helping' their kids.... So you have to
take up the reins now and before you know it, it becomes a competitive stressful game among grown-ups!
Stop for a minute and ask, ‘What is the
goal for my child in this project’? ‘What is success here?’ Coming first,
winning a medal or learning (to lead, to fail, to be self-dependent, to be
accountable, to be confident)? What if the child took ownership of the complete
project, stumbled and fell and you were right there to pick him/her up. What
if, you empower your child not by doing his/her work but letting your child
lead, take ownership and direct the project the way s/he wants to. You are
cheering on your child from the sidelines and ready with bazookas to protect
your child, if need arises, but let the child fire his/her own bazooka.
What kind of leader are you and what kind
of leaders are you developing at home?
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