Want to be a better manager and keep your key people? Learn to let go.
There are some buzzwords and key phrases that, if you spend enough time hanging around the HR strategists in any corporate environment, you’ll be bound to hear: “minimize attrition”, “increase employee engagement”, “maximize potential.” These are great ideas, and they sound fantastic when you put them on paper, but what do they mean in practice?
If you are a crafty and experienced manager, then you have already identified your top performers. Developing talent in the name of succession planning is a key focal point for any strong, future-proofing organization. Providing stretch assignments and pulling employees outside their comfort zones in the name of development has become the norm, and it’s fantastic for engagement! These employees provide outstanding deliverables to you, day in and day out. They don’t complain, but these high potential employees are still leaving. They’re still not happy, and they’re still looking for greener pastures. Why? What are we doing wrong?
The answer can be simple, albeit a little counter-intuitive: you, as a manager, need to learn to get comfortable with failure; get comfortable standing in the line of fire; get comfortable in areas where you probably shouldn’t be.
Why? Because your employee needs to know that you have faith in their ability to solve problems, make educated decisions, and contribute to your business. As a manager, a key piece of your job is to remove roadblocks so that your employees can be successful. The first step in removing roadblocks is recognizing that you have a high likelihood of inadvertently becoming a roadblock yourself.
What do I mean by this? Let’s say you’ve got an employee with an idea to improve production, increase revenue, improve customer satisfaction, reanimate the dead, whatever. The idea itself is irrelevant. The key is your approach. Want to see the data to support that idea? Fair enough. Your employee will take the time to provide it to you. You’ll know that you’ve done your employee a service by providing your blessing, and maybe even a little praise.
But hang on a minute! If your employee has already proven themselves to be someone who thinks through their decisions and makes calculated moves, then why do you need to sign off on their data? It’s going to be solid. Trust them. Get an overview, and then let them roll forward...even if you don’t necessarily agree. And on the chance that the idea fails, don’t feel that you have an obligation to reprimand. Use it as an opportunity to teach.
Noted leadership guru and former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink wrote a fantastic book called “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win.” In it, he describes a situation involving unprepared soldiers; “overconfidence was risky in such a hostile environment, a mistake most often made by warriors who had never truly been tested.” This quote is wholly descriptive of the unintended results created by overzealous managers. You absolutely must test your people.
As a manager, failure is your golden opportunity. This is your window to truly develop your employee. You will find that they will be extraordinarily open to your input after they’ve had the opportunity to make a mistake. In fact, you will find that they will crave your input, advice, leadership, and direction without hesitation.
Immediately, you will stop being just a manager. This is the difference between “management” and “leadership”. You will become a mentor. There is a common workplace mantra that says, “employees don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.” The mantra is true; management is consistently cited as the #1 reason employees voluntarily leave organizations. Well, employees do leave their managers, but they have a much more difficult time leaving their mentors.
This approach may be difficult for you if you were promoted into your role largely for your aptitude for perfectionism, and to scare you even more, there is another side to this. If it’s in your nature to micromanage, this will terrify you: apply this method to a large enough sample group, and it will backfire on you eventually. It may result in a very uncomfortable conversation with your manager, a VP, or even a COO or CEO. But letting go is imperative. Because if we want to keep our most prized assets – our key people – we’ve got to realize that there is often as much value in failure as there is in success.