Let your leaders lead

Intro

Better leadership is the best way to raise productivity, because it unlocks discretionary effort across the entire workforce. Hard to argue with that, right?

And yet, it’s very common – particularly in professional services, where people spend years building their high level, high value expertise – that even when people do eventually become leaders, the organisation doesn’t really let them lead.

What's the issue?

Most leaders are player-managers i.e. they retain some responsibilities for direct delivery. For example, a team leader of in an insurance brokerage retains some key clients for whom she is the trusted advisor.
That delivery part of the role can become the cuckoo in the workload capacity nest, squeezing out time that should be spent leading. That could be the fault of the individual, who prefers the familiarity of doing the technical part of the job – which after all they were so good at it got them promoted. Or it could be the unbalanced encouragement of their boss to focus on their individual delivery rather than that of the team.
The role of leader is often downgraded. Leaders may only be appointed:

to provide structure on the org chart.
to disseminate comms from high to low
to act as bouncers to prevent issues filtering upwards
to have people ‘report’ to them on paper, but without being responsible for determining how much they’re paid, what they should work on or what development they should get.

In other words, they’re not really given the authority to make the team work, which subordinates see through immediately. It’s hard to know which side of that equation feels worse – realising you’ve been appointed into a role that renders you a lame duck leader, or that you’re being led by one.

4. In addition to the miles of shelving out there filled with leadership books, leading is something that can only really develop with experience – when you can put all that good theory into practice. But if leaders are given titles but no opportunity to learn and grow, those above will identify their continuing lack of competence and keep them caged. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

5. If you don’t let your leaders lead, you are significantly increasing the risk of your internal environment moving slower than your external environment. And then you’re going to fall behind until you fall over.

Consider this

Make a leader only do the technical part of their role and that will improve the productivity of one person. But let that leader lead, and it will raise the productivity of lots of people. And then there’s their synergy as a bonus.
Some people want to become leaders because in their view, technical roles – such as solicitor or broker or salesperson – don't carry the kudos of leadership. So think about creating career paths where your technical superstars can enjoy all the kudos and perks of leadership. That could stop ambitious people who don’t really want to lead from climbing the wrong ladder. Plus they could then be better led by people who really want to do it for all the right reasons – not just pay and prestige.
Remind yourself of all the things a leader needs to do in order to be a good leader. Time with their team. Time to reflect. Time to develop. Budgets to deliver change. Comms channels to be heard and to learn. The freedom to upset political apple-carts, breaking down silos to link up with other leaders, pulling the whole organisation together towards being one. And that, as you know all too well, is just the tip of the iceberg. Leadership is not a role you can do once you’ve finished doing your day job.
Ask yourself why your leaders aren’t being given the full autonomy and time to lead. Is it that the leader hasn’t earned the trust required? Is it that their boss has trust issues? Is it that there actually isn’t a common understanding of what leadership is in your organisation, despite the meticulous job descriptions you have on file?

Try this

Agree with (or dictate to) your leaders the nominal split between leadership and personal delivery. That will clarify your priorities, their expected M.O., and the level of leadership their followers will receive.

And then think about whether that split needs to shift in the future, and what it would take for that to happen.