What exactly does it mean when a leader receives the feedback that they don’t bring people along with them?
How did they get so far ahead, and why isn’t the team keeping pace with them?
As it turns out, the problem of bringing people along can refer to two different issues: communicating the rationale for the leader’s thinking and task requests, and gaining buy-in to the strategy or plan (usually through inclusion).
We have written extensively about gaining subscription in earlier Field Notes, so in this post, we will turn our attention to the communication challenge.
The first step in bringing people along is for leaders to explain what they are seeing, what strategy and actions they are contemplating, and what the reasoning or rationale is underlying the requests they make of others before the plan takes any shape or form.
Before any plan or strategy exists, a leader can choose to communicate what they are thinking or not.
Facile leaders and those who, like sharks, are in constant movement, often think five steps ahead of any problem, issue, or opportunity.
This is an unusual strength–unless the leader doesn’t take the time or make the effort to tell the team what they are seeing and thinking.
When the team doesn’t understand the rationale behind the leader’s directions that spring from this thinking, they don’t execute their part with rigor or vigor.
In some cases, team members will intentionally resist directions or tasks set unilaterally without explanation, no matter how smart they believe the leader to be. They resist because they weren’t informed, which they interpret as a sign of disrespect.
Team members who work with leaders who fail to bring them along with their reasoning are often tasked to address problems or opportunities they don’t fully understand, which severely dilutes their effectiveness.
Without understanding the consequences or implications of the problem, they often become confused when new tasks are assigned.
Over time, this uncertainty leads them to disengage or to go through the motion of execution without any attention to quality.
Good leaders not only take the time and make the effort to include the team with what they are thinking and seeing, they also ask them to probe their logic and evidence.
They don’t debate with the team about the conclusions they are forming. Instead, they ask them to examine the reasoning and evidence underlying those conclusions.
In other words, they not only explain the problem or opportunity set but also ask for the team’s help in challenging their working assumptions.
Including people in what they are thinking, contemplating, seeing, and concluding is what good leaders do to bring people along. It is well worth the effort. Without it, teams flounder with uncertainty and weak execution.
There’s no excuse for that. Bring them along with you instead.
