To lead a productive team, teach them how to make the right decisions.
A good team leader makes themselves unnecessary. 1
It shouldn’t be necessary that you’re in every meeting. It shouldn’t be necessary that you leave an opinion on every Confluence page. And it definitely shouldn’t be necessary for you to make or approve every decision.
As “the single wringable neck”, you hold the responsibility for the progress of the project. But that doesn’t mean that you need to do all the work.
Some leaders like to consider themselves “deeply involved” in every aspect of the product. I’d argue that these guys are holding their teams back from being truly creative, and literally killing themselves in the process.
GSD(WY)
So, how do you make sure that the right things are getting done (without you), by the right people, at the right time – while not involving yourself in every decision?
- To reduce responsibility confusion, set crystal clear role expectations: Does your engineering counterpart know exactly what you’re expecting from him in that role? Does the design team understand exactly what problem they’re solving, why it’s important, and when you want to see the next version? Does this business team understand what their involvement should be at this time, and when it’s likely to change? If possible, establish expectations on the very first day a new member joins the team. (And if that’s already past, cancel some meetings and do it today!)
- To reduce priority confusion, over-communicate the problem: How often do you re-iterate the problem you’re trying to solve, and why when? Who on your team would (and wouldn’t) be able to recite it from memory? When everyone knows this, everyone is more likely to make the right prioritization call in your absence. Start regular reviews with the problem. Reiterate it at the start of planning meetings. It’s easy (and understandable) to lose sight of the forest for the trees, especially when it’s crunch time. State the problem as often as possible to help keep everyone focused.
- To increase decision-making speed, make it OK to be wrong: If the goal of this is to get out of the way of your creatives, then you have to make it OK for them to make decisions without first consulting you. If not, figure out what information you have that they don’t and relay it to them.
The Ultimate Test: Disappear
You can test how unnecessary you are by marking yourself as Away on Slack for a few days. There’s a cognitive blocker to sending someone a message on Slack while they’re away, which usually results in that person making a decision or getting the answer somewhere else. Use this to your advantage to see how your test reacts when you’re not around.