Superstar Hires Won’t Solve Your Team’s Dysfunction
Read enough on management and you start to get the idea that all your problems are solved by finding that perfect hire, the high performer. It’s all in the person you hire, just hire some rockstars and you’re all set. After all, you are only as successful as your team, right? (yes and no…)
That thinking is fundamentally flawed but tempting for a few reasons. The reason that it’s tempting is that it’s a case of silver bullet thinking. If you could only find that silver bullet then all your problems would be solved. So what’s wrong with silver bullets? They become the focus instead of the end result. You spend all your time searching for the perfect tactic and you avoid concentrating on the strategy and asking the tough questions. Furthermore is abdicates your role of leadership. Your role is not just to hire people and sit back and watch. Your role is to actually…well..lead!
Delegate, yes. But lead you must. Coach you must.
Leadership is about bringing out the best in your team. Aligning the right person to the task and coaching them along the way. Your role is not to micromanage but it’s not to set it and forget it either. You’re not roasting chickens here, we’re talking about people.
Patrick Lencioni offers some great insight to this with his 5 Dysfunctions of a Team model.
These dysfunctions are all a result of the culture that you, the leader, sets. Sure good hires can help in these areas and bad hires can make things worse but ultimately it takes leadership to make sure these dysfunctions are not evident in your team.
You’re the one that sets the culture and ensure that your team is not dysfunctional. You’re the one that should be bringing out the best in your people. Thats where the work is but thats where the joy is as well. In the end a company is just a group of people working together for a common purpose.
