Dream Team: The Confident Leader
“Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.”
― Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
When we unleash our people to experiment with their creativity, amazing things happen.
The confident leader lets others do things and get the credit for it. Essentially it’s saying, “I believe in these people, they’re better than me at certain things, and if they’re not I didn’t select the right people. If I don’t trust them they’re not the right people; if they don’t have the freedom to go do what they need to do, then something’s not right.”
Leaders looking to attract and retain great staff would do well to take advice from successful leaders of the past, like Peter Drucker, who said, “No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.”
There is freedom in the realization that it’s not personal greatness that begets a “dream team”. Rather it is by careful consideration and wisdom that in selecting the right people who are trustworthy, giving them the freedom to create, and allowing them to take credit for what they produce. Then the leader’s job shifts to cultivating unity on the team as opposed to spending time demanding uniformity.
“Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.”
― Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
The core of making an idea work. Brilliant. Sage. Helpful.
Brian Stiller