Workplace Calisthenics: Leadership a balance beween control, responsibility

If you are responsible for your organization, does that mean you have to control it?

There is a difference, you know.

Most of us have been taught (by Mrs. Olson from "Little House on the Prairie," General George C. Patton and a gazillion politicians) that when you are the top dog, top banana, or top honcho control is the essence of leadership. Keeping the troops in line is the name of the leadership game.

Behind this thinking lurks paralyzing fear. It is the fear of what would happen if the staff got out of line.

If the front-line supervisors got out of line, would it mean your organization would close your doors?

If the employees got out of line, would they storm your office, throw you out of the building and spend the rest of the day watching Turner Classics on your built-in, big-screen television?

A little reality testing is essential here. When you take your worst fears and run them out to their logical conclusions, your anxieties are often just another excuse for prescription drugs.

I am suggesting that responsibility and control can beat in the same heart, but balance is the name of the game.

Usually, this getting out of line is just another ego trip of letting people know, "the butt stops here."

To determine if there is imbalance in how you see yourself as a leader, decide whether you need to control these situations:

You are working with a team of people to establish a new grievance policy. In your opinion, this team has a lot of conflict among the members. There is open and honest disagreement marked by heated debate.

You are meeting with a group of your senior management. Administratively, they answer to you. In this meeting, one of the managers said, "I am not in agreement with this project for this reason ..." This is one of your pet projects, which you are convinced should be pursued.

One of your front-line supervisors has just made a decision to discipline an employee by sending this person home, without pay, for five days. The employee has called you to plead his side of the story. You listen and then tell the employee, "I will get back to you."

Let's look at your need to be responsible for the organization without taking control by reviewing your response to these three scenarios.

In the first situation, do you think it is time for you to break in and say, "That's it I want this bickering to stop. This is the last time I want to hear this kind of negativity. Now, move on with a decision we don't have until the next millennium to work on this grievance issue."

If you need to control, open, honest debate may be seen as a waste of time.

On the other hand, when working teams have the energy to disagree and debate, they also have the energy to build strong alliances. If you control the conflict, you also keep your staff from growing up.

Look at your response to the second situation. Even though you are highly invested in a particular project, is it necessary for you to control the responses to this project?

In other words, can someone disagree with your project without you perceiving this response as a personal attack?

Notice that your staff person did not say, "I do not agree with you on this project ..." This was never personal.

Finally, look at how you felt about the third situation. If you even had the conversation with the employee, your control quotient is off the end of the scale.

It is the kiss of death in any administrative relationship for you to question your supervisor's ability by practicing the open door policy with an employee.

If you think the supervisor was in error, this conversation should have taken place just between the two of you. When the employee called your office, he/she should have been told, "You need to negotiate with your supervisor." You always have the right to disagree with a supervisor's judgment (that's responsibility) without involving the employee (that's control).

You are not running for political office, leading a charge in World War III or making an updated version of "Little House on the Prairie." Keeping everyone in line is not a line out of leadership.

(Dr. Cal LeMon solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. His company, The Executive Edge, can be contacted via the Business Journal at sbj@sbj.net.)