Lead with Context
Why leaders in the knowledge economy need to transfer information to the edges of their organization
👋 Hey everyone, happy to be back after a month's break from writing. Please like, share, comment, or do nothing. Up to you. Here are 675 words on leading with context.
Leaders love information. They work hard all their careers to finally get it. It's like sitting in coach and hoping one day you can see what it's like in business class. Once up there, you are filled with information and knowledge about how the company is thinking about its future.
Yet, when everyone gets on a flight, regardless if they are in business class or not, they know where they are going and information isn't being contained to one section of the plane. This, however, is not the case in companies.
In a typical company, only one section knows where they are heading. The challenges and opportunities ahead are exclusively discussed. Meanwhile, everyone back in coach is sitting wondering where this company will land.
Leaders need to break this pattern that was established decades ago. The waterfall of information that came with the industrial revolution created clear lines between 'workers' and 'leaders'. As we rely more and more on intellectual capital in the knowledge economy, the pressing need for information to be distributed to the edges of an organization increases.
Personally, I've found this to be true with not only managers but also engineers and designers within our Growth team. Leading with context has allowed highly skilled individuals to be tooled with the information they need to understand their impact. This translates into the team digging deeper and moving faster due to the accelerant of information.
"Your role as a manager is not to do the work yourself, even if you are the best at it, because that will only take you so far. Your role is to improve the purpose, people, and process of your team to get as high a multiplier effect on your collective outcome as you can" - Julie Zhuo in The Making of a Manager
One of the most effective ways to improve your purpose, people, and process is to distribute the information that allows each member to see the bigger picture. As a result, you can safely delegate ownership and tasks to your team as they know the context and complexity.
These people are adults, they can handle it.
A while back I was thinking about organizational changes for growth. Typically, I would think through this exercise myself, get feedback from other leaders, get approval, and then feed the actions down to the team. During that exercise, I would make assumptions about how our engineers, designers, and stakeholders would react to this change, make appropriate plans, and get it done.
But I didn't do that. Instead, I worked with the people that were closest to the problem, my team! I gave them the information and context I was working through when thinking about building out the organization. We talked through potential reporting structures, the team splits, and what made the most sense for Jobber.
Their eyes didn't widen with concern. They didn't look at me and think I was a mess and didn't have things sorted out. In fact, they weren't surprised at all that I was thinking about these problems. They expected it. So, they jumped right in with me to think about the future.
It's natural for leaders to not want to share information that isn't set in stone. As planning commences and strategies are being worked on, it goes against our nature to provide that information to the team before it's been agreed on. Leaders need to use their best judgment on when and why they share information with their team. I recommend challenging yourself to share early and often. In the past, I've shared work-in-progress information that ended up drastically changing. Again, that's okay. I provided the context behind why things changed and my team trusted me and understood the complexity.
To summarize, gain trust from your team through the transfer of key information. Ensure they understand the complexity and give them opportunities to contribute feedback. These actions will result in a team that fully trusts each other and is aligned to the purpose of their work.