Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

Message from the Lead Dog Principal #4

On daily basis, are you making too many decisions?

I was a micromanager.  I was a micromanager at home and at work. I felt that I needed to be in on every decision in our school or district.  Since retirement, at home, I have gotten a little better at letting go, yet I still find that I have to consciously force myself at times not to be that decision maker.  I will readily tell anyone who wants to listen that the best part of retirement is not having to constantly make decisions.  Perhaps, I just made too many!

I heard some chatter on the radio the other day and it spoke of a CEO limiting himself to one major decision per day.  He viewed his role as seeing the big picture and planning ahead.  He was the one worried about the vision and the direction of the company ten years out.  Others on his team could make just about every other daily decision.  These words made sense to me.  Yes, I believe you as the principal of superintendent of your school or district can implement the same practice.  And I believe that if you do, your long-term results will pay big dividends.

Let’s pause for a moment and think about your daily decisions.  How many actually require you to be involved?  I am convinced that if you did a little study of this it will affirm my assertion. Listen, that is what you pay your team to do.  If you hired the right people, I am sure that they are capable of making these decisions that you usually force yourself into making.  Of course, there is that big if.  Did you hire right people and do you trust them?

If you follow my blog, you know that I would be remis if I did not use an example from the world of sports.  How many decisions does the head football coach in the National Football League make on game day?  Believe me, not as many as you might think.  Most head coaches have specific coordinators to handle offensive, defensive and special team plays. The assistant coaches usually handle all game day personnel decisions. The head man will usually be the one to control the use of time outs and whether to go for the first down on any fourth down.  In most cases, when the situation dictates, he may tell his offensive coordinator to run or pass the football but will not get into calling the specific play.  Of course, I am making some generalizations to make my point.  But in actuality, the head man makes very few decisions on game day.

So, the moral of this story is to back off.  Let your “coordinators” make the day-to-day decisions.  You are needed to steer the ship and to be looking to the future.  I think that you will be surprised that your people can handle these daily rituals.  My big question is, can you handle it?  Can you handle not inserting yourself into every decision?  Go for it!