The Three Legged Stool — A Foundation for Leadership
I had just moved into a job for which I did not feel fully qualified when I happened on this piece of advice. I was in my first week at the office and was drinking from a fire hose. New vocabulary, acronyms, relationships, software, and new concepts thundered down on me all day long. Every night I was exhausted and wondered when everyone would figure out that I was a phony and laugh me out of the job.
One day as I walked out of work at the end of another exhausting day, I saw my boss’s boss standing on the sidewalk with a cooler. I greeted him sheepishly, to which he smiled, opened the cooler and offered me a beer. I smiled with a bit of relief, took the cold can, and fell into a five minute conversation that set the first bricks of my leadership foundation.
The director understood that I was new, and I think took a bit of pity on me — perhaps because of my disheveled composure and apparent aire of exhaustion. While we sipped on our beer, he provided me with his three main principles of leadership, which I have since dubbed the Three Legged Stool. He said all that I needed to know about good leadership was to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am, take responsibility for their mistakes, and give them the tools they need to do their jobs. I admit as an entry level employee it took me perhaps a year or two to fully grasp the breadth of wisdom in this advice. But I now understand its importance and implement it on a daily basis.
I mumbled an unintelligible appreciation for the advice, then watched him load the cooler into his car and drive away. By the way, I never learned why he was standing on the sidewalk with a cooler of beer in the first place, but why not?
Let’s take each of the legs one at a time.
Surround Yourself with People Who Are Smarter Than You
At first this advice rang counter to everything I had ever believed. Wasn’t I supposed to be the smartest person on my team? Wasn’t that why I was team lead, or supervisor, or manager? I was convinced that I needed to know more than anyone else so that I could tell them what to do and how to do it. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Telling people what to do and how to do it is called micromanaging — the very term that sends supervisors into probation and employees running for the door.
What I failed to understand is that each of my staff has a unique position with distinct roles in the organization that require a specific skill set. There is no way I will ever have the appropriate training, education, or experience to do one of these jobs, let alone all of them. What I need are specialists that are able to do their jobs well. That is, I need to find people who are smarter than me in each of these unique areas. Further, I need to find the best person I can for each of these positions.
You see, my job as a leader is not to tell them what to do and how to do it. They need to show up on day one with a good sense of that already. In fact, I need them to tell me what they propose to do and how they want to do it. Only when my staff experts bring this to me can I exercise my role as a leader.
This advice is also helpful when hiring new staff. I think to myself, sure I could do the job that I am hiring for, but I must find someone who can do it better than I can. If not, then I will continually be micromanaging and trying to bring the person up to the level they should have been at in the beginning.
Give Them the Tools They Need
In my naive first-time analysis on this advice, I thought the director was referring to a computer, a printer, and a stapler. In fact, without these what would my staff do? But, of course, there’s more to tools than paper clips and a keyboard.
To me, this advice is focused on training and empowerment. I may have a specialist in a technical field on my staff that has the necessary skills and experience, but has never worked with a particular software before. I may have a staff member who is used to half of the workload I am giving her, but now she has an assistant. Whatever the particular case is, your staff will need training (initial and ongoing) to accommodate their skills to a new work environment, new demands, or innovative initiatives.
For example, someone who has ridden a street bike all their lives will be able to ride a mountain bike on a forest trail, but they would certainly do it more effectively and safely with some additional instruction.
Your job as a leader is to identify and support these needs. Ideally you are anticipating this beforehand so that your staff are prepared and excited to take on a new challenge.
In addition to training, however, I believe one additional tool that employees need is empowerment to do their job. This comes from the trust that you have in them to do what needs to be done. Empowerment isn’t something you say or do specifically; it’s more of a feeling the employees have that allows them to push forward at their own pace and direction. It’s this trust that leads to your staff being willing to take risks, which flows well into the third leg of the stool.
Take the Blame for Their Mistakes
When I heard the third leg of the stool I was convinced that the director was completely crazy. Why on earth would I take the blame for other people’s mistakes? The whole point of me getting better at my job and moving up was that I made fewer and fewer mistakes and, therefore, received more accolades and promotions. If I not only had to own up to my own mistakes, but also carry the burden of other’s mistakes then I would never be seen as a success, right?
Wrong. Let’s first think about what you don’t want. You don’t want employees who are robots. You don’t want staff that always play it safe. You don’t want your team to mechanically produce the same work over and over with little to no variation. No, you want innovation! Innovation can bring you efficiency in processes, new products, expanded client networks, or increased revenue.
But no one pushes the envelope or thinks outside of the box unless they know that you’ve got their back. It only has to happen once for your staff member to try something new, fail, and get reprimanded for it, for her to never do it again. Never.
We hardly ever get it right the first time. Let alone the second time. I believe Thomas Edison made 1,000 attempts before successfully illuminating the first light bulb. Innovation requires risk, and with risk comes potential failure — or potential reward. But as a leader, you need to allow for the failures as you patiently await the rewards.
Therefore, you need to provide your team with the assurance that they can take risks without consequences — not from you or the organization. And what that translates into is you taking the blame for their mistakes.
I had a staff member attempt a design of a new training module. I thought the endeavor was risky, but agreed to let him move forward. Unfortunately, the concept was good but the execution was a failure. My supervisor learned about it and called me into his office with doubts about the employee’s abilities. I assured her that the employee was one of our best assets and that the training mishap was a result of my guidance. I apologized and told her that I would do better next time.
Some of you may shake your heads thinking that you would never say this to your boss. But I’ve found that humility and honesty far outweigh anything that you say afterward. My boss appreciated my management of the matter and trusted me to move forward. The next time we ran the training module, it was a success.
