This spring our family went on a trip to the Florida coast. We love the ocean and we LOVE big waves! Waves are powerful but the biggest danger aren’t the visible waves on the surface of the water, it’s the riptide underneath.
On the surface, everything looks normal, but step into a riptide, and you’ll be dragged farther and farther from the safety of shore. It’s counterintuitive but the only way to survive a riptide is to let it carry you sideways so you can get out of the current and regain control.
Leadership has its own version of this.
The Leadership Riptide.
On the surface, your team looks fine. The numbers are solid and everyone’s got their head down working hard. You’ve got clear goals, active management, and constant feedback, but underneath, silently, something’s pulling people away from real growth.
You’ve slowly shifted from developing your people to managing their behavior. Once you’re caught in it, the more you try to control what people are doing, the more you pull them (and yourself) off course.
It feels like you’re “holding people accountable,” but if you’re always the one correcting, reminding, & nudging, you’re building a system dependent on your oversight.
I often connect with successful business owners who express frustration around the amount of oversight they feel they still need to give leaders on their team. They want leaders who can solve problems on their own, take ownership of a situation without much oversight, and execute at a high level with confidence.
If you want to see this dynamic formed within your team, the formula is simple:
Stop managing what your team is doing,
Start developing who they are becoming
You’re not ignoring results, you’re putting a heavier emphasis on shaping the kind of person who produces results naturally vs. through your constant hovering!
Instead of telling your team what to do or how to do it, ask them questions that develop their ability to think critically and strategically about the situation.
“How do you think we should handle ______?”
“Who else might be impacted by this decision?”
“What’s another way we could solve this problem?”
“Tell me more about how you arrived at that decision/conclusion”
“What are 3 options you’ve considered? Which one do you think is best and why?
When you feel like your team needs your oversight and control, don’t attempt to create MORE control. That’s like attempting to swim against the riptide. Pivot and focus on developing the way your people think so they become proactive vs. reactive and start to operate at a higher level.
That’s the deeper work.
That’s real leadership.
