Steve Case: Management Is Not a Solo Act

One of the hardest things for emerging leaders to learn is how to let go.

Steve Case, a founder of AOL and now CEO of an investment firm, was originally like that. He said he believed it was necessary for him not only to work hard but to appear that he was working hard, too. Fortunately a co-founder of AOL, Jim Kimsey, set him straight. “The objective,” as Case told  Adam Bryant of the New York Times, “should not be looking busy, but actually creating a process that allows great things to happen in a way that you can be less involved.”

Entrepreneurs are notorious for falling into the Do It Yourself (DIY) habit. That may be good for home repair people but not business people. And especially not rising executives. The higher you rise the less you do personally and the more you do for others. The leader becomes the enabler of work design and work flow as well as work management. She puts the right people in the right places and enables them to succeed.

This is a hard lesson for young managers to learn. And that’s understandable. The reason they have been promoted is because they have been able to accomplish a great deal by working solo, or as HR likes to say “individual contributors.”

With more responsibility they must disengage from the areas where they are competent and shift into areas where they are less comfortable – managing others. So how do you teach managers to delegate? First and foremost you need to show them the way. Bosses have to coach them through the process but also make it very clear that they are responsible for getting the work of the team done, not doing it themselves. Simple, yes, but hard lesson for many who like to dive into details.

I have found another approach that works and it is tapping into your energy, that is, what excites you about the business. As an individual contributor there is great satisfaction in doing things yourself, especially if you are good at it. Analysts like to make the books balance; marketers like to design good promotions; sales people like to close the deal. Yes, but as a manager you suddenly become one step removed from the action. You miss the juice, the satisfaction and sometimes thrill of doing something well.

Replacing that juice comes down to energy. You feel good about accomplishing what you have done, but now as a leader you must take pride – and pleasure – in what the team has done. Because in reality the work is not done!

As Case noted to Adam Bryant, one of his favorite quotes is from Thomas Edison . “Vision without execution is hallucination.” It therefore becomes the leaders job to ensure that execution occurs. That’s a hands-on job that requires the leader to delegate authority and responsibility to the right people but also remain in the loop constantly. Too often leaders – not just rising managers -- find themselves distracted by other things and so execution goes south.

A well-focused leader stays on track, in part because that’s his job, but also because such concentration delivers the kind of satisfaction that he or she may have felt when they were flying solo. Now their energy comes from managing the team.

Not everyone can replace such enthusiasm. If that occurs, then that person is not suited for management. He or she needs to contribute as an individual – and that’s a good thing. But organizations need their leaders to be able to let go as a means of enabling the enterprise to succeed by unleashing the talents of individuals.