Zach and a co-host discuss why leaders shouldn't need approval for every decision. They explore how to build trust between managers and supervisors so decisions can happen faster, and why constant permission-seeking undermines leadership.
How then do you structure it with your leaders in terms of their autonomy versus what gets actually bubbled up to you?
I think that comes from the beginning with having your leaders know that you trust them and have their back when they do make decisions on their own. That if it's something that is relatively routine, even if it's something that is a little bit outside the norm, maybe a client had issue with something, but you need to show that the leader is able to make that call themselves and to just tell you what they did and to talk about it then, rather than to ask you for permission for every little thing. And I think this comes back to what I was speaking about earlier, where if a leader came to me and said, hey, Zach, this thing happened, here's how I reacted, I'm letting you know. And if in that moment I decide, huh, that's not how I would have handled that thing, I wouldn't be upset. I would say, okay, let's talk about it. Like, what was your thought process getting there? Here's how I would have handled this. I'm curious what led you to do it in a different way? And that back and forth dialogue, I think, can be helpful both for me to understand their rationale as a leader and, if necessary, for me to give feedback to the leader about how they can do better going forward.
