The manager’s role is changing rapidly. Organizations want to implement a new culture with more entrepreneurship, experiments and ownership. Furthermore, it puts teams at the centre of their organization. This change can ask a lot from the teams and the success lies within the leadership.

Imagine

You arrive at the office. You see different teams working together in order to try something new for the customer. They know how to evaluate this and they measure if there’s real value for the customer in it. A lot of synergy and fun is within the team. However, you see this is not without obligation. They speak to each other and take ownership. It shouldn’t be at the expense of the customer journey and a special group of clients is chosen.
All of a sudden you realize: it was a long journey on a bumpy road, but how cool is this!

A lot of managers are naturally inclined to steer on the content. After all, that’s how you became a manager and therefore it feels safe. However, at the same time you feel like it’s all about you as a person or you’re having the idea of using too little of the potential of your employees. You will have to let go. This is essential to create space in the organization for:

• Creativity, experimenting and entrepreneurship
• Safety & trust
• Feeling of responsibility
• Fun & connectedness
• What got you here, won’t get you there. Start with letting go!

But, how?

Disclaimer: there is nothing like a ‘golden egg’. Learning a new style of leadership is 80% perspiration and 20% inspiration. Anyone who promises you that you can achieve this with a course in leadership is either a good seller or that person makes you consciously incapacitated.

Letting go is not something you can do very quickly. You just simply can’t immediately switch from command & control to servant leadership. No worries: we think fully servant leadership and self-stirring teams don’t exist. You can come really far, however, by just doing everything step by step. A team can’t just let go everything immediately from the beginning. You’ll have to do this in phases. This means this is also the case for your style of leadership. You’ll have to adapt this to the team. In other words: all the time, you’ll give them just a little bit too much space.

These are the steps you can take

1. Start the conversation: what do you (or what do they) need in order to be the best team? Create a future map and a road map on how to reach the goal. Note that in the end the conversation is more important than the outcome!
2. Start with measuring ownership: talk with the teams about how much ownership they now have and how much ownership they want right now. The conversation can be much easier if you use a game for this. If you have an MT, this can also be a Management Team poker.
3. Be vulnerable: your employees will see you very differently than you see yourself. Introduce the NPS score for managers: how likely are you to recommend me as manager to a friend or colleague? Add two more questions: what did you see me doing that fit my role and what would you give me?
4. Make sure to do a diary check: with every topic, look why an employee couldn’t work on it (instead of the other way around).

Why you shouldn’t do it?

Don’t do this if you want to be on the stage yourself, if you don’t want any mistakes to be made or decisions that are being made without you. Do you want to keep control yourself and be the face of your department? Don’t even start! However, do you want to work in an environment where creativity and fun in the workplace are prominent? Then it’s crucial to start with letting go.

In a few of our blogs, we’ll teach you how you can let go and what the benefits of letting go are. Letting go is essential for:

• Creativity, experimenting and entrepreneurship
• Safety & trust
• Ownership
• Fun & connectedness
• If you still have questions or remarks after reading this blog, please feel free to ask questions or make comments.

We wish you a lot of fun and success in this journey.
We’re still working on the journey that you’re going to make and we think it’s beautiful 😉

Jeroen & Peter