WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Some years ago, I came across this quote on mature leadership and wrote it down as a reminder of what excellent leadership looks like: “Remember, you’re the conductor — not the virtuoso.”
All of us are doers, managers and leaders, depending on the situation, and each function requires a different mindset and different skills. As we go about our workday, we can fall into the trap of not effectively transitioning between the three mindsets, and that can cause serious leadership problems for our organizations.
You might be diligently working on a task you must complete yourself as a doer, and then quickly move into a meeting or conversation that requires you to shift your approach into a leadership mode. However, because your mind is still geared toward “doing,” it’s possible that you approach the leadership meeting or discussion as the doer “virtuoso” who has all the answers and dictates those answers (and maybe even the literal words) to your team.
You then move on feeling good that you accomplished the task at hand. In reality, you may have just bungled a leadership moment to the detriment of your team and mission.
Many leaders believe they are paid to have all the answers. So when moving from a “doing” or even a “management” moment into a “leadership” moment, they feel compelled to immediately solve problems by controlling the conversation and too quickly dictating a solution.
This is such an easy trap to fall into. That is why it’s so important to deliberately identify and classify the situation you are in at any given moment and select the best approach for the scenario at hand.
If you are in a “doing” moment where you must develop a product largely by yourself, your approach will be mostly autonomous and self-directed. If you’re in a “management” moment, you will serve as coach, organizer, technical adviser and standard-bearer. However, if you are in a “leadership” moment, it is critical to shake off the “virtuoso” mindset and allow your team members to engage.
Our most-mature leaders realize they don’t need to be an expert on everything. While there are times of urgent crisis that require leaders to issue directives responded to with little conversation and quick action, our business environment generally calls for a much different approach.
The best leaders know their success comes from identifying and hiring talent, developing workforce skills and then engaging the team to capitalize on the its abilities, knowledge and opinions. A breakdown in any of these three areas causes real problems.
Are you hiring people with the right potential? Maybe they don’t have all the technical knowledge yet, but do they have the qualities your team needs to be successful? Then, as a leader, what are you doing to grow the skills of your workforce? Have you invested in the training programs, development opportunities and education your workforce needs to be the best they can be personally and professionally?
And then when the time comes to deal with business issues and challenges or decide how to move forward as a leader, do you bring your team together to engage its experience, teach you things you didn’t know and allow solutions to come forward out of the open exchange of ideas?
Even if you are focused long-term on hiring practices and training or development, if you are not effectively allowing your teammates to offer opinions and recommendations, you may be acting as a virtuoso and not a conductor. If you find yourself interrupting other people, finishing another person’s sentences, trying to complete another’s thoughts and dictating the literal words you expect your team member to use, or you do not take the time to sit with your team and deeply consider its points of view, you are likely falling into this common leadership trap.
The eventual result will be that your team members leave you for another job, or perhaps worse, they leave you in spirit.
We will all find ourselves in moments that require our leadership. It’s critical that we continually and deliberately work to properly classify that situation.
When our leadership is required, we need to be careful not to allow a “doing” or “virtuoso” approach to undermine an opportunity that calls for us to capitalize on the talents, experience and thoughts of our team. As leaders, let’s remember our value is not in having all the answers. It’s in how well we coalesce our teams, provide opportunity for team members, and consider the ideas and solutions our teams bring forward.
When leading, be a conductor, not a virtuoso.