‘FAKE IT TIL YOU MAKE IT,’ AND OTHER TERRIBLE LEADERSHIP ADVICE
I recently had the privilege of being included in an article written by Jacynta Clayton at WORK180 about terrible leadership advice that female leaders have received during their careers. Here’s what I shared with their audience.
Only leaders get to rule on important decisions
The worst advice I’ve received is that important decisions should only be made by executives and senior leaders. What’s driving this advice is a person’s often false belief that these executives and senior leaders have the most experience and therefore know best.
I don’t agree with this advice because executives and senior leaders don’t often have all the necessary information available (or the ability to gather it in a timely manner) to make good quality decisions.
It puts unnecessary pressure, stress, and anxiety on executives and senior leaders to complete the impossible task of continually stay on top of everything in the rapidly changing complex environments that we operate in today. This expectation for them to be across everything can leave leaders feeling isolated; like they’re carrying the weight of an organization’s fate on their shoulders and can’t ask for help.
This advice can also impact innovation due to a lack of diverse voices being considered. Similarly, employee engagement can drop because of feelings of helplessness or inability to see any impact from their roles.
The advice I’d give instead is to be clear about decision rights. Decisions can be risk-managed and safely distributed across the organization and its people when everyone is clear about things such as:
- What decisions need to be made?
- Who can rightfully make each decision?
- What principles and guardrails apply to each decision?
- What is the escalation path for each decision?
- Who has the right to take a decision away from someone or make it instead of the rightful decision maker?
- Who should be consulted or informed about the decision?
You can read the full article here: https://work180.com/en-au/blog/fake-it-til-you-make-it-and-other-terrible-leadership-advice