“If an institution wants to be adaptive, it has to let go of some control and trust that people will work on the right things in the right way.” Robert B. Shapiro I’m sure that previously I shared with you that in the past when I became a leader and supervisor (Army Lieutenant) right out of college I made plenty of mistakes. One of them was being a control freak on what was going on in my organization. The reason for that is that it was the leadership style that was modeled for me at the time.
As the quote above alludes to, if you really want to be adaptive in a rapidly changing world you need to “first” hire good people and then turn them lose to do the work. Setting the general direction is appropriate for the leader, but micro managing their work only leads them to do it one way—your way and the ability of the organization to move forward will be limited by your personal knowledge and the hours in the day that you can commit to the task.
Turning people lose also allows them to grow and expand their personal horizons which in turn will make them more creative and valuable to the organization. I see creativity and innovation as the solution to many of the issues we face today.
