Napoleon Bonaparte, arguably one of the most successful military leaders in history, owed part of his success on the battlefield to his ability to choose a place to fight. When he could, he fought where he could see the whole battlefield, and then positioned himself so that he could see. His ability to see what was happening helped him plan, but also to react quickly when things didn’t go to plan.
The same can be said of any leader at any level in any organization today.
Your ability to see the business or the activities you lead make a difference to the decisions you make. Seems so obvious it shouldn’t need discussion. Right?
Wrong.
Unfortunately the lived experience of many teams is of being subjected to decisions made by leaders who don’t see or understand the conditions where the action is, and worse, are unable to see quickly when things aren’t going to plan.
Leaders can’t be expected to see everything that’s happening even in a small group, but they can be expected to decide what they need to see. Not seeing everything isn’t the problem, it’s not seeing the important things.
As a leader, what you See defines your leadership style as much as what you Say.
In large organizations, senior leaders are more distant from where their business really happens, so have more excuses for not seeing. On the other hand their need to see becomes greater, because problems are less likely to be felt immediately, or bump into them in the corridor.
What you look for is important because it shows what you care about. What you care about matters because that’s what you’ll return to and think about most. Your team doesn’t know what you care about just because you think about it. They only know because they see what you do, what you say, and what you’re looking at.
Choosing what you look at is an important leadership task. As you choose what you look at there are 2 things to be careful of:
1. Favorites
Passion is vital, but what you really care about and what you should care about aren’t always the same thing. Don’t get too focused just on the things that you like to do. The risk here isn’t micro-management, its narrow scope.
There’s nothing wrong with not being motivated by everything in your responsibility – you’re human after all. A good leader is conscious of this and finds ways to give attention to those “other” important things.
One way is to make sure someone in the team does. This is why delegation and empowerment are critical. It’s also why diverse leadership teams are too, not just to divide up the work but to distribute the passion about different things.
2. Distance
Taking a “30,000 foot view” is useful, but it’s also a dangerous place for leaders to stay at too long. Seeing the “big picture” is no excuse for not knowing important details. Napoleon fought with his troops, he didn’t stay in Paris and rely on messages.
There is no substitute for personal involvement in the actual business, regardless the level of delegation. “Visits” are often the only way that you will see what’s not written in reports, and a visible sign that you care. When combined with some detailed knowledge they can be very powerful improvement drivers.
As a leader you can’t be everywhere, even in a small organization. You must create the pathways and the filters inside your team for information to get to you, and also have to go searching for it.
“As a leader, what you See defines your leadership style as much as what you Say.”
Clear Objectives & Priorities help because they act as filters. They keep everybody focused on the same issues. They should shape your meeting and visit agendas.
Regular, efficiently structured performance reporting helps. So too do good meetings.
The combination of these 3 (Standards, Data & Routines) provides the “Balance” in BalancedKaizen.
Your success as a leader is not just dependent on how you react to problems, but on your ability to see the whole task at hand and the problems you look at, as well as those you don’t.
This is equally true for a first level supervisor or a Chief Executive.
Your Problems may not be on a battlefield, but you do need to see them if you’re going to help solve them, or learn from them.
Photo credits: Napoleon at Wagram, painted by Horace Vernet (Galerie des Batailles, Versailles)