Recent events have underlined how important it is for leaders to create redundancy. Global reliance on a single source of production, for any asset — as with microprocessors and natural gas, has proven to be disastrous for corporations and their customers. This is a timeless leadership lesson: Becoming overly reliant on any single source, provider, or supplier is a dangerous way to lead.
The same holds true on teams where processes or critical tasks are centralized and controlled by one person. As this team member’s knowledge and importance increases so does the risk to the team’s ability to deliver. When this team member departs, for whatever reason, the team is commonly at a loss to recover.
Even basic steps in the processes or tasks the person controlled become impossible to replicate by those without similar experience and context. Engines grind to a stop. Who exactly gave this one person so much power and control? That would be you.
The best leaders seek to document all critical processes and create redundancy by having others ready to take over these tasks at a moment’s notice. This requires cross-training team members so that more than two or three others can run things in the event the primary process owner can’t. While this seems obvious to anyone who has faced the problem, it is less so when a talented superstar is better than everyone else at the tasks involved. Once they taste how important they are to the team, these same stars often resist training others and push away calls for redundancy.
Don’t fall into the over-reliance trap. Ask often where the team lacks redundancy and begin immediately to create it. Firmly deny requests to put this off for a better time or when the right team member raises their hand for this cross-functionality. Whoever holds too many cards in your leadership poker hand is putting you and the team at risk. Don’t let them.
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