Go In or Stay Out

Executive Leaders must know when to go in and when to stay out.

People won't want to work for you if you go in too often or at the wrong time. Micromanagers are not leaders. The best ideas will not see the light of day if they all have to come from the people at the top of the organization.

If you always stay out, you will likely have some pretty big messes to clean up, possibly putting your organization at risk.

So, what criteria do you use to know if you should go in and drive change or if you should stay out and let the results fall where they may? Here are a few thought starters:

1) Risk: If the risk/impact is high to the organization, the team, customers, or the congregation, you should go in and help the team make the necessary adjustments.

2) Development: If the risk/impact is low and failure seems imminent, yet the learning opportunity is high, stay out. Often, leaders remove the barriers to failure for their team, and the team never learns/grows.

So often, I see either of these two extremes (always going in or always staying out) exhibited by leaders. In both cases, it just crushes their influence on the people reporting to them.

If you have trouble discerning when to go in and when to stay out, talk through the situation with a mentor or supervisor before making the call.

Keep in mind that most people want to be led rather than managed.