CHAPTER 2

The Empowered Mindset

How to Be More Empowering

HOW TO PROVIDE THE FUEL TO TAKE ACTION AND DRIVE DECISIONS

We can define the empowered mindset as the degree of autonomy a team member has to take action and drive decisions. The level of empowerment can be situational and is ultimately based on the trust built over time between a team leader and a team member. People often ask whether we mean how empowered the team member feels, or to what extent he or she is effectively empowered.

Although both questions are important, I believe that if you can move the needle on strengthening team members’ actual empowerment, in most cases they will then feel more empowered as well. The converse is not so true. But it does help for everyone to better understand the limitations of empowerment.

WHAT MAKES EMPOWERMENT SO CHALLENGING?

We reviewed the key problems associated with empowerment previously, but here’s a quick summary:

Even though an empowered and aligned workforce can drive significant results, empowerment cannot be dictated by a company-wide policy or directive. It’s ultimately about the trust level between two people—the team leader and team member. This could be between a CEO and CFO or between a first-level manager and an individual contributor. It also can apply to a team leader driving an organization initiative and his or her team members (without a direct-reporting relationship).

In fact, the model could also apply in any case in which a more knowledgeable person is coaching or mentoring a peer or other team member in the organization, but both are somewhat accountable for the outcomes. This is true at work and at home. The framework is the same, regardless of level or reporting structure, although the nuances vary.

BUILDING THE TRUST

When Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, wrote about trust, he described it as trust in a person’s character and capability. This applies to the trust needed in the empowered mindset as well. But the team leader ultimately must have a sense of trust in the team member’s ability to deliver, and in his or her judgment to do so in a way that is consistent with the values and sensibilities of the team leader and the company. My version of what is needed to drive trust in the empowered mindset is as follows:

Trust in their judgment + Trust they can deliver

Team members also need to have a sense of trust that their team leader will support them and help them succeed and grow. Both parties contribute to building the degree of empowerment.

Through my many experiences working with great teams in global innovation companies, I have found that there are key skills that the team leader needs to adopt, and a corresponding but different set that the team member needs to use simultaneously. It is through both partners demonstrating these skills that this trust is collectively built.

What does the team leader need to do to let go to the degree that will produce the best results? How do they lift themselves up to operate at the bigger-picture level, as well as lift up their team members to do the same?

Simultaneously, what do team members need to do to proactively step up and “earn” the right to be empowered? The key is that both parties benefit immensely by fine-tuning this empowered relationship—to ensure the fuel for a team member to take action and drive decisions.

There are four skills and actions for each side of the equation. Let’s take a deeper look, starting with the team leader’s role.

THE EMPOWERED MINDSET: HOW TO BE MORE EMPOWERING, LET GO, AND LIFT UP

Letting go and empowering your team to the degree that’s appropriate is an ongoing challenge for many leaders. If they let go too much, they may be taking unnecessary risks. In addition, the business may not be benefiting from the leader’s full expertise and experience. However, if leaders don’t let go sufficiently, team members will grow disenfranchised, check out, or leave. At a minimum, they won’t be contributing at anything near their best. Unfortunately, the situation is subjective; the perceptions of the team leader and team member can be very different.

Let’s examine four key skills that I found proved critical for the team leader to be more empowering. Not only is it necessary for the team leader to build a level of competence and effectiveness in each of these skills, but it is just as important to use these skills when it is appropriate. It doesn’t help to be competent in a skill if you don’t use it when you should.

Be More Empowering Skill 1: Champion the Bigger Picture

To drive empowered relationships, especially in the context of strengthening impact in and across teams, the team leader needs to champion the bigger picture. This means lifting up and emphasizing the organization’s core purpose and how the team fits into the broader strategy. It means ensuring that the broader context is communicated and understood when projects or initiatives are assigned. In addition, championing the bigger picture is about role modeling, supporting cross-team collaboration, and not focusing solely on one’s own team’s success.

Imagine what a difference it would make if the team leader was an evangelist for cross-team success, rather than showing unconstrained bias toward his or her own team and making disparaging comments about other teams. In observing teams at hundreds of off-sites, I saw that it was not uncommon for team leaders to make negative comments about other teams with whom they needed to collaborate. This is corrosive and antithetical to being a positive force in cross-team collaboration. The leaders who really stood out were those who partnered effectively across the organization and expected their team members to do the same. They demonstrated and maintained respect for their counterparts.

Most of us come to work every day to make a difference. Having a sense of purpose inspires us to higher levels of performance. Great innovation companies are known for attracting people who want to not only make a difference, but to have a greater impact and change the world. It is very powerful when a company is aligned around a core purpose and team leaders at all levels are able to communicate and reinforce the key messages throughout the organization. This sense of higher company purpose provides a great motivation for people to come to work and do their best.

One example of this is Genentech, now a member of the Roche Group, a leader in biotechnology. They have a huge banner on their campus showing some of the real people benefiting from the lifesaving drugs they produce. They actually begin many of their larger employee meetings with real people whose lives or family members’ lives have been saved, and what it meant to them. Genentech employees have a very strong sense of their core purpose in the biotechnology industry and in the world.

When Walt Disney built Disney World in Orlando, Florida, the castle was constructed before the rest of the theme park. Although this was very costly, Disney wanted to give everyone a standard to pursue, and a concrete example of the dream as a realistic foundation. From the beginning, a key value was to offer Americans a place to bring their families and experience the magical world that his films depicted on the big screen, contrasting it with the carnival atmosphere of similar locally based attractions. Everything from the rides and food to the park environment and “cast” behaviors and actions had to be aligned to achieve that higher purpose of being a magical destination.

I actually experienced the power that a sense of purpose can instill in an organization. I supported an executive team long ago as an HR business partner. The company was growing fast, the general manager of the division was a natural leader, and our team was solid. We all believed that we were laying the foundation for email to become a primary form of communication by connecting people through their computers. And it did. (Yes, you can at least partially blame us!) People were incredibly committed to driving success in and across teams, because it was all interconnected, and we were all working toward making a huge difference in how people worked and communicated in their daily lives. There was a tremendous amount of pride and fulfillment throughout the organization.

Appealing to a sense of purpose also applies when motivating and inspiring team members to action. What is the compelling reason for a team member to follow and help bring to fruition an idea or objective from his or her team leader? A wise leader knows team members well enough to connect to a sense of meaningful purpose, rather than simply dictate directives. This purpose can come from both the importance and impact of the project, as well as the benefits to the team members.

This sense of purpose gets to why this work is important. If team members feel compelled to deliver from a deeper sense of purpose, this can help sustain them through some of work’s normal frustrations and obstacles, and fuel them to apply themselves beyond the norm. In addition, by having the broader purpose behind a goal or objective, they are better able to make trade-offs and consider the overall context when making decisions on how to invest their time and money with competing demands. This bigger picture and purpose could come from within the team leader’s own organization, from other cross-functional groups, or from the enterprise at large. In the end, a team member should be able to answer the question “Why is this project important?” and that can be achieved through direct communication and individual discussions.

Actions to champion the bigger picture and create a higher sense of purpose, emotional connection, and context for making trade-offs and decisions could include defining and communicating the following:

Professionals in today’s complex business world will make better decisions and will try that much harder if they’re imbued with a sense of purpose. And if team leaders across the organization are crusaders for championing the bigger picture and cross-team success, it will inspire everyone on the team to go out of their way to support other interconnected teams to achieve the broader goals and make better day-to-day decisions.

Be More Empowering Skill 2: Clarify and Update Expectations

The world seems to be moving at an ever-increasing speed. When it comes to setting expectations, the pace of change and the interconnectedness of teams are what make it so critical and challenging. As a team leader, it is important to clarify expectations both in terms of what you expect (goals) and how you expect someone to deliver on those goals (behaviors), as well as to clarify the strategy, scope, boundaries, and key interdependencies on an ongoing basis.

As a team leader you are responsible for having a point of view on each team member’s job or role requirements, including key responsibilities, skills needed, and goals to achieve annually or, more common now, monthly and quarterly. Often this point of view can change as the team morphs, as business requirements change, and as individuals add their own ideas for how they can drive the most value. Given all those possibilities, you can see that expectations need to be reviewed on an ongoing basis. It is worth noting that while it is the team leader’s responsibility to ensure clarity, developing and proposing expectations can also be initiated by team members.

Job or role expectations

A job description can provide the basis for the broadest set of expectations for a team member’s role. What are the key responsibilities and skills needed for the position? I am often surprised when I hear that positions are created with no specific job description. This often leads to much confusion for both the team leader and the team member when the job is not understood in the same way by both parties.

A further challenge in fast-growth organizations is that roles shift quickly. New players are added, leadership changes, and new competitive and growth opportunities emerge. Think of a job description as dynamic, and useful to the extent that it helps to clarify mutual expectations relative to the overall role. But for the most part, you will find that ongoing discussions between the team leader and the team member are most beneficial.

Role expectations can also apply when cross-functional teams are formed. What is the role of each team member? What skills does each member bring to the table? Are they on the team to provide data? Provide specific expertise? Be a decision maker? Clarifying this up front can be very helpful to colleagues and to the overall team operating norms—especially during cross-functional team projects.

Behavior expectations

Expectations also include behavioral norms and values. We shouldn’t need to explicitly ask people not to lie, but perhaps we do need a discussion around issues of deception, less-than-total disclosure, and appropriate transparency. I remember an executive in one company who wrote an email making it appear as though it were from someone else in order to influence a situation. Clearly that would be considered deceitful and unacceptable. But you could imagine a situation in which someone is wondering whether to include certain customer data (or omit it) in a summary for execs. A discussion might be needed on where to draw the line and for what reasons.

Behavior expectations can also include how we expect people to treat one another. Some examples include treating others with respect, openly sharing points of view, sharing knowledge to help others, being aware of and removing unconscious bias, and having a fun environment where there is zero tolerance for sexual harassment or any gender or racially related bias. Usually these topics come up when there’s a problem, but it is important to discuss these as a team. Establish those norms proactively rather than reacting only when there is an issue.

Because you are a team leader, your team members will look to your actions and not necessarily your words, so proactively model the behaviors you expect of your team members, in alignment with the overall company values. As a team member, consider bringing up some examples to your team leader to gain better clarity in terms of his or her beliefs and values.

Goal expectations

Goals and objectives, or OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), provide a plan to achieve specific results in a period of time to help move the business forward. Many companies have implemented systems (processes or technologies) to cascade or translate objectives down through the management levels either annually or quarterly. Whether this is the norm at your company or not, you still need to translate the company goals into doable objectives for your function or team, as well as down to the individual. In chapter five, we will explore a process I used successfully hundreds of times with management teams. For now, we’ll address how this plays out for you—as a team leader and as an individual contributor.

In reviewing the research for optimal performance, I found that one concept was clear: specific goals with due dates work better than ambiguous goals with no dates. If you’ve committed to get the project done by March 31, the end of Q1, you will indeed feel an increased sense of urgency when that due date nears. The clearer you can be on what is included and not included in that deliverable, as well as expected quality levels, the better. Many organizations have adopted the simple version: SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timeline. Goals don’t have to be perfectly SMART, but the more SMART, the better.

As a team leader, ensuring that your team members all have updated goals at least quarterly is important to ongoing success. In some fast-paced, dynamic environments, priorities and goals can change quickly. Having goals and objectives can provide the basis for your ongoing one-on-one meetings (weekly or biweekly) with your staff members. Combining this with an overall set of goals for your department or function provides a clean package of direction for the team. We will revisit this when we explore the challenges of alignment in chapter five.

Interdependencies

It is not unusual for interdependencies to get overlooked when clarifying expectations. They may seem more of a side issue. Yet not emphasizing them can send a message that those interdependencies are simply not as important. If your peers (other team leaders) are also overlooking interdependencies, perhaps relating to your team, it can undermine the willingness of teams to deliver on those interconnected goals.

If your team members don’t understand the interdependencies, then one of two things is likely to happen. One, if you have not communicated the importance of your team members’ participation in the broader project, they will be far more likely to downplay the importance of the commitment to other teams. Two, if you don’t help your team members identify their project’s interdependencies, then they may not engage and include the right people for success.

Team members deserve a degree of clarity on goals and expectations, and it’s the job of the team leader to be sure that need is met. Setting goals and reviewing them on an ongoing basis requires a partnership between the team leader and team members. Given the rate of change, it is not unusual for goals and priorities to shift. And nothing is more frustrating than working on what you thought was an important task or project, only to discover that your team leader doesn’t think it is important any longer.

The team leader needs to drive clarifying expectations, emphasizing interdependencies and showing how each team member is critical to enterprise-wide success.

Be More Empowering Skill 3: Move Decision Making Down in Order to Scale

Business growth requires many components including a strong business plan, the right product or service, and most important, the right people with the right skills. As a company grows, there are more people, more products, more customers, and more complexity; therefore, roles are often expanded, new organizations are formed, and new roles emerge.

Leading during times of growth and change can often be a challenge, particularly if the reason you were selected for leadership was because of your individual capability—your functional or technical expertise, decision making, and results orientation. But to scale and enable the organization to continue to grow, a team leader can’t hold on to all the decisions and actions. The better companies consciously try to push decision making down to the lowest possible level, to the point at which they are not putting important outcomes at risk.

There are two significant advantages to moving decision making down:

The more capability team members possess, the easier it is to push decisions down. It comes down to perceptions of their judgment, and the likelihood they’ll make good decisions in those gray situations.

I once worked with a CEO who had a very hard time letting go of anything. He simply refused to push any decisions down and held on tightly to the reins. He thought of himself as a movie director, controlling all decisions related to the film. He actually used that phrase—“I’m the director”—and when pressed, he couldn’t identify one decision he’d be comfortable with other people making without his consent.

His organization was a pre-public start-up. He was hoping for vast wealth upon going public, and when exposed to the flaw in his own thinking, he acknowledged that this was a life struggle for him. He simply couldn’t trust anyone to produce the kinds of results he envisioned.

When I pointed out the limitations on the future growth of his firm given that rationale, he did acknowledge its shortcomings. This was an extremely smart individual, with the very best academic credentials and an IQ off the charts. But he couldn’t get out of his own way. The board ultimately replaced him.

Pushing decisions down as part of empowering your team can happen at all levels, not just top leadership.

Let’s use an example of an organization that is considering upgrading the company servers (those large sets of computers or cloud services that companies use to manage all their data). The decision to upgrade the servers would ultimately be an executive team decision through a combination of business, financial, and technical assessments. The CIO (chief information officer) would be the one to propose the idea and would have many inputs from others throughout the organization.

Once the decision is made to execute, the CIO could be involved in higher-level decisions (such as overall solution strategy and/or strategic partnerships). But there are many decisions that can be made below the CIO, both contributing to the higher-level decision and then driving execution—such as process flow for data or data configuration, either from the CIO’s top team or through other levels as appropriate.

It helps when a team leader can ask for input or even delegate workstreams, while simultaneously indicating the extent that he or she wants to stay involved in the decision-making process. For example, in the previous scenario, the CIO would likely want to sign off on any large financial agreements in alignment with the overall IT budget. People just want to know what to expect. Many times, the problems arise when a team member concludes he or she doesn’t have any decision-making power. Team leaders who partner with their team members and discuss where they want to be consulted or involved along the way drive smoother execution. It’s through the discussion that clarity emerges.

Add value strategically

If team leaders are effectively moving decisions down and sharing decisions more broadly, how do they add value? If they aren’t adding any value at all, then why are they there? If they are constantly adding value, they are probably micromanaging.

Areas where team leaders can add value strategically include:

As a team leader, review how you spend your time, and consider what you could be doing to add the most strategic value to the company. You could review how you spend your time quarterly and consider what you will stop doing, streamline, or push down in order to build more capacity to take on the business growth and scale.

Coach and mentor for growth

If you want to push decision making down and create an environment where team members flourish and have an opportunity to achieve greater impact, you have to help develop them. Although annual reviews can be useful and insightful, they are much too infrequent for continual coaching and feedback. Most of us have ongoing one-on-one meetings with our team members (and with our own team leaders) that focus largely on setting and reviewing goals and how to move toward success. The best team leaders in empowered relationships also set aside time to discuss the team member’s strengths, areas of opportunity for development, and career aspirations.

Team members need to feel (and the word feel is there for a reason) that the team leader cares about their growth, not just about achieving goals. Inquiring about their aspirations, asking where they could use more support, and offering yourself as a sounding board to help explore their thinking can all help them to view you not just as a manager, but as an ally, coach, and mentor.

There are lots of strategies to coach team members to lift up. One vice president I know hands out a pen to all her direct reports engraved with the question: “What would you do?” That question helps everyone continue to grow. It makes each person think about a situation before discussing it with her and has led to considerable development of talent. This is a question any manager or direct report could use on a frequent basis.

I worked with a general manager who struggled to push decisions down because he did not see his team members demonstrating a strategic purview or understanding the larger context of the business dynamics. They made tactical suggestions that were very short term.

He knew this would ultimately inhibit business growth (and his own ability to make an impact), so he held monthly strategy sessions with his whole team to discuss the business challenges and competitive marketplace, ask their opinions, and then give feedback and coaching on how they might consider alternative approaches and expand their perspectives. In this example, a team leader recognized that he needed to lift up his team members so that he could be more empowering, and he took on coaching them as a group.

Coaching your team members does not necessarily mean telling them what to do or how to do something. The best coaches ask lots of questions and help individuals discover solutions for themselves.

For example, if someone comes in asking for advice on how to approach a project, you have a great opportunity to broaden his or her critical thinking. Instead of giving your opinion on the key steps, ask:

After you have listened to your team member’s ideas, share your thoughts! Sure, it would be easier to just tell them, but by going through the process to coach and guide them, you are building their capability for the future. At a minimum, make it a two-way, collaborative discussion.

As you coach your team members, be a role model in giving and asking for feedback on an ongoing basis. Feedback is best when specific and given in a timely manner. We’ll cover this specifically in chapter seven, and you will see that other collaboration skills can be applied to the empowered mindset as well. As a team leader, setting a tone that you are open to feedback and view it as a way to grow and develop will help build trust with your team members.

Reinforce initiative

As you coach and build your team members’ capabilities (which allows you to delegate, take on a more strategic role, and lift up), recognize and positively reinforce the behaviors and actions that demonstrate their ability to step up, add more value, and broaden their skills and experiences.

Be sure to recognize when your team members lean in and make suggestions, demonstrate a broader perspective, or take on new areas of responsibility. By reinforcing that taking initiative is valued and smart risks are welcome, you are supporting their growth and development. In addition, a behavior is more likely to continue if there is positive reinforcement.

This is a story that comes from one of my colleagues:

I was leading a large team, hiring new team members, and driving multiple initiatives all at the same time. I was feeling stretched, and I knew my team meetings weren’t going smoothly. One of my team members asked if he could help by putting an agenda together in advance. He suggested pinging the team for topics and structuring the meeting, so we were clear on when decisions needed to be made, or when we were just sharing information. I couldn’t have been more appreciative! I gladly accepted his offer, and over time he continued to make suggestions to run the team more effectively, and he put in team processes and metrics to track progress. He grew his career and I had someone I could trust with day-to-day operating decisions.

Showing appreciation and recognizing your team members enables you to shape behavior in a positive way. Recognizing and reinforcing positive behaviors is not limited to your team members—it can be used in daily life with your manager, peers, even family and friends.

Research shows that effective behavior change comes from recognizing new behaviors frequently at first (perhaps daily) and then increasingly spaced out over time (weekly, then monthly, then even quarterly). Be specific about what the person did that you want to reinforce. Rather than saying, “I liked your input during that meeting last week,” you could say, “I liked how you listened to the two different perspectives during the meeting and then paraphrased the essence. You built on those two points to create a better solution that everyone accepted. It was awesome!” This level of specificity lets the individual know exactly what to keep doing.

Ongoing recognition is a powerful motivator and an important strategy for keeping your team members engaged and pushing to make the biggest impact. However, understanding their reward and recognition preferences is important.

I wanted to recognize a new master trainer at a conference in front of several hundred participants. Since she is in front of a classroom on a daily basis, I assumed she’d be delighted with the very public recognition. Unfortunately, I was surprised by her reaction when I told her of the plan. She shared that having such a large group focused on her accomplishments could be anxiety provoking. After telling her that I really only wanted to do what’s right for her, she agreed to do it, and I made sure to keep it short and simple. I learned a lesson that day that there is not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to recognition. Knowing what might be special or meaningful can vary from person to person, and I need to always question my assumptions.

How do you know what’s right for the various people you want to recognize, including your own manager, peers, or family and friends? Inquire about what they like to do, their passions and interests, and what moves them. I’ve come across some powerful and fun recognition stories from people who received the smallest of tokens or gestures that were memorable and meaningful because the person recognizing them knew what was important for them.

I’ve also come across examples of what not to do when it comes to recognition.

I was consulting at a successful Silicon Valley technology company. The head of international sales held periodic sales organization events, during which he would very publicly recognize his country managers. He had this quirk, though. When he brought each person up to the front of the room for recognition, he would end each comment with a negative. The country managers were all put off by the negative comments in front of their peers under the guise of recognition for a job well done, but they did not want to address the issue with him. As a consultant, I could safely highlight the issue. The head of sales listened, but he told me his intention was to “keep them on their toes.” In the end, he was sabotaging his own efforts at strengthening the team and acknowledged there were better ways to keep them agile and inspired to grow.

Nothing is wrong with pointing out areas for improvement; that is part of coaching. But undermining the power of recognition is not the goal. Ensuring that you give authentic, sincere appreciation and recognition is critical. I like to say, check your BS (yeah, bulls#!t) meter. If it sounds over-the-top, ingratiating, condescending, or insincere, it will likely not be taken well, and it may actually do damage.

Finally, remember that team leaders are also team members. Proactively recognize the skills and behaviors your manager demonstrates to help you feel more empowered. This could mean recognizing how valuable it is when he or she provides the bigger picture, pushes decisions down, and coaches you for success. Any team leader behaviors and skills that empower a team member can and should get regular positive reinforcement.

Provide information, resources, and access

There is an old saying: “Knowledge is power.” Providing all the information you can (including context, background, history, consequences, people to include, traps to avoid, etc.) fuels a team member’s power to take action and drive decisions.

My experience is that team leaders don’t usually hold back information for malicious purposes. If information is held back, it is often because information sharing has not been made a priority, or because team leaders think more information might be overwhelming to the individual. But if you ask team members, more often than not they will say they would like more information, not less.

Adequately providing resources to deliver on a goal or initiative is also an important but often challenging task. Resources refers to funding, people, and tools team members need to accomplish their goals. You may need to negotiate the scope and feature sets, and timing or phasing.

When discussing resources, all of them can be considered as currency to resolve conflict. Adding people is rarely the solution, given the sense of urgency and time needed to onboard new people as well as integrate and coordinate with them. But be realistic!

Scott Adams’s Dilbert comic addressed the challenge of resourcing beautifully.

Pointy-haired manager: “I’m happy to announce that we launched our company’s spaceship to Mars. . . . We only had enough budget to give them oxygen for three quarters of the trip. . . . So I told them to breathe smarter, not harder—it’s called leadership.”

Providing help in navigating the organization and access to key stakeholders is another aspect of the support needed for someone to be empowered to take action and drive decisions. Helping navigate the organization could include suggesting whom to influence when driving an initiative and how to build a coalition of support. By access I mean initiating or paving the way for a team member to engage with other leaders, subject-matter experts, or other critical stakeholders to help drive goals forward.

It can feel stressful and risky to provide a team member access to a senior leader. The direct report needs to help build a sense of trust with their manager, so the manager is more likely to be comfortable providing that level of access. (More on that in the next chapter on how to be more empowerable.)

When I reported to the head of HR, who reported to a senior vice president of administration, she could have limited my access to the CEO and other senior vice presidents and managed the interfaces with those senior leaders herself. Fortunately, she opened those doors for me, so I could meet with them directly to better understand the needs of the company regarding leadership development.

Be More Empowering Skill 4: Hold People Accountable and Learn

People often confuse accountability with punishment. They hear these words used in government: “We need to hold so-and-so accountable.” But what does that really mean? In government, it usually means either firing the person or making him or her suffer. Team leaders and team members who rate high on empowered relationships know that accountability is a critical aspect of ensuring that goals and objectives are executed to drive results, and that when it’s used well, it elevates the performance of individuals, teams, and organizations.

If there’s a difference between what’s expected and the results delivered, then it needs to be called out in a respectful, fact-based, neutral manner. It doesn’t have to be harsh or punitive. You simply need to state that there indeed is a difference between what was expected and what (or how) it was delivered. When team members are held accountable and learn from their mistakes, they are better positioned to drive more positive outcomes in the future—and make a greater impact.

Holding people accountable is a skill not just for team leaders. Team members who work with others across the organization or with their own team leader can benefit as well. When someone disappoints us by not delivering to expectations, it needs to be called out. Unfortunately, some team leaders may overlook problems or avoid addressing issues of accountability because they are conflict-averse, want to be liked by their team members, or worry it will alienate the team member and make things worse. However, addressing accountability issues benefits not only the team member but also the team environment—others know when issues aren’t being addressed—and the overall organization’s success.

Holding someone accountable does not need to come across as harsh. How something is said counts a lot, often more than what was said. You can make “Can you tell me about it?” sound like a demanding account of how extensively the team member messed things up. Or you can say the same words in a more supportive manner, showing genuine interest in learning more about what really happened and how to avoid these issues in the future. Clearly, we’re after the latter.

Once the issue has been highlighted, then it is time to jointly problem-solve with the team member, rather than at the team member. Explore together how the wrong outcome or behavior occurred. What were the circumstances? It’s unlikely that the team member purposely made harmful decisions or acted in ways that put people off. Remember, we’re talking about professionals who are marketable in their own right. Consider both motivation and capability, along with outside factors. Perhaps the real culprits or obstacles were out of the team member’s control. Examples include other colleagues not delivering on commitments affecting the outcomes, senior management resistance, and conflicting priorities. Rarely is it simply a matter of the team member not delivering if expectations were clearly set.

It is best to address accountability issues earlier rather than later. If there is a significant pattern of substandard performance or behavior and you have given appropriate feedback and nothing changes, you need to assess whether this is the right role for this person. If the team member is not the right fit, you may need to explore replacing that person or shaping their role so that it’s more commensurate with their capabilities.

Joseph Grenny and his coauthors have an entire book, Crucial Accountability, that spells out how to drive accountability effectively. The authors provide an in-depth approach for this particular skill, whereas Work That Counts focuses on the broader challenge of driving impact.

Make it a learning opportunity

Remember, when someone falls short of expectations, this serves as a powerful learning opportunity. It provides a real example for everyone involved to analyze and determine how the situation arose and what might be done to mitigate it now or prevent it in the future. Be sure to ask, “What can we/you learn from this situation?”

Here are some helpful steps to address accountability issues in a constructive and supportive manner.

  1. Point out the difference between what was expected and what was delivered (considering both the outcome and associated behaviors). This can be said in a respectful, rational manner. The more you stick to the facts, the better. A simple example: “You said you were going to get input from those three other teams, and it looks like you didn’t include them. As a result, those three teams are resisting implementing our new process.”

  2. Ask for the team member’s perspective: “Can you help me understand what happened?”

  3. Ask the team member what he or she learned from this experience.* This is great fodder to explore together what was learned, and it can later be shared with other teammates. Some people refer to this as a “learning moment.”

  4. Problem-solve together and agree what needs to happen differently going forward.

  5. Conclude the discussion by reinforcing what was learned, recognizing the courage it took to act, and voicing your support in moving forward. Highlight that you would rather know sooner than later if a deliverable will be missed, and emphasize that the team member can come to you for assistance or coaching anytime.

In the preceding example, perhaps the team member tried to include the other teams, but they didn’t seem to want to invest the time. OK, that’s good to know—you could then ask what the team member could have done differently when the other people didn’t engage. This is where the learning occurs. Focusing on the decisions that led to the result helps remove the judgmental aspect of win-or-lose, instead tapping into an aspiration of continuous improvement.

If you are a sports fan or have ever observed professional sporting events, you may be able to relate to this. The outcome of a sporting event: Did the team win or lose and by how much, or did they succeed on that play? The decisions made during the game may be good or bad, regardless of whether they won this particular game. Many other factors affect the outcome of any competitive event, or even a play within the game.

Sometimes people take risks and the expected outcome isn’t achieved. In a team leader’s quest to empower his or her team members, there may be times when things go off track. However, all would agree that without informed risk there would be no progress. It takes courage to try new things, and the objective is for team members to feel supported as they step up to take reasonable risks and address tough challenges—particularly in cross-team situations.

Only the team member can say whether they feel that their team leader is with them or against them. This is a subjective perception that needs to be managed wisely by the team leader. Holding your team members accountable, demonstrating that you support them, and exploring what they have learned will help build the trust needed for them to continue to take action and drive decisions.

Summary

To Be More Empowering and Provide the Fuel to Take Action and Drive Decisions: Let Go and Lift Up

The Four Key Skills:

When the team leader uses these four key skills effectively and applies them appropriately, it will drive the team member’s trust that they will indeed get the support they need to succeed. As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, even if you aren’t a team leader, you can use these skills with others, and you can refer to them when discussing what you need from your own team leader to make a greater difference in your organization.

Consider how empowered you are as a team leader, as well as how effectively your team members are empowered. Take a look at these four skills and identify where you might put your effort. Asking for feedback and exploring these skills with your team members is recommended for the overall use of this framework—to fine-tune your empowered relationship. A team member can point out areas where more help would be beneficial.

Empowerment is a relationship that is built on trust, forging a foundation for win-win results. In the next chapter we will explore key aspects of what team members need to do to be more empowerable, and then I will provide some simple but effective starters for getting the conversation going between team leaders and team members to strengthen their empowered relationship.

At home, do you have some of these same challenges? Of course you do. We are going to examine more closely how you can utilize the empowered mindset and skills at home, after sharing the details about how to fine-tune an empowered relationship in the following chapter.