Provide Choices

Freedom is the ability to make choices. People who perceive that they don't have any choices feel trapped; and, like rats in a maze, when left with no alternatives, they typically stop moving and eventually shut down. By giving people genuine autonomy, leaders can reduce the sense of powerlessness and accompanying stress that people feel and increase their willingness to exercise their capabilities more fully. You want people to take initiative and be self-directed.

What impact do leaders have when they “give others a great deal of freedom and choice in deciding how to do their work”? Students whose leaders very frequently provide this latitude evaluate their leader's skills over three times more favorably than students whose leaders do so only rarely. In addition, as shown in Figure 8.1, the gap in productivity between those students who feel empowered and those who don't is dramatic. Students feel significantly more productive as a result of their leader's providing an opportunity to use their judgment and to have discretion in how their work is completed.

Francis Appeadu-Mensah served as director of his school's drama club in South Africa and felt that it had great potential for helping his classmates find new avenues for personal expression. He promised them that they could participate in any activity they wished (for example, writing, directing, or performing) in order to discover their passions and their abilities. He gave them choices, telling them that “this is a place where you can explore and decide where your talent lies.” When people were new to the club or simply not sure what part of the club they wanted to explore, Francis would pull them aside, often after rehearsals, and ask, “What did you think?” or “What would you do if you were directing this scene?” or “How would you have delivered this passage if you were the actor?” Clearly, Francis left spaces open for people to choose for themselves, and in this process of exploration, they learned new skills, strengthening their overall capability and confidence, and increasing their commitment to both their individual projects and the overall success of the performance and the club.

Leaders want people to think for themselves and act, not continually ask someone else, “What should I do?” You can't develop this ability if you tell people what to do and how to do it. People can't learn to act independently unless they get to exercise some degree of choice. The only way to create an efficient and effective group of people who can meet the challenges that are part of trying new things is by giving them the chance to use their best judgment in applying their knowledge and skills. This implies, of course, that you've prepared them to make these choices and that they feel well-grounded and aligned with the values and the vision of the group.

Structure Tasks to Offer Latitude

Every year, the students in a leadership development program at a large eastern university participate in the annual homecoming week festivities. One of the major events of the week is the parade, for which groups across campus build floats based on the theme for the year. Designing and building their parade float had always been a group effort for the students, but the process was not always well planned out, and their floats seldom measured up to what the other student groups put in the parade.

The year Dan Samuels was cochair, he and his float committee recalled how challenging it had been building the floats in previous years. Conversations at the beginning of previous float projects typically progressed from talking about what had been created in prior years to tossing around new ideas with great enthusiasm. It was common to start with a high level of energy, Dan said, but then the momentum would quickly wane as confusion set in around who would play what role, who would oversee the work, how the subcommittees would get more students involved, how much time would be required, and on and on.

Dan was determined not to repeat history, and set out to make the group's float for that year—and the process of creating it—the best one yet. “I'd been involved in the homecoming float project a couple of times,” he told us, “and people getting confused and losing interest didn't make sense to me because as construction on the float progresses, it gets to be even more exciting and fun.” When Dan began talking to students who had started strong in years past and then dropped off, he learned that this was because they just didn't feel as though they were contributing in a significant way, that there were plenty of others who could do what they had been assigned to do. “That made me realize,” he said, “that I needed to help people feel like their unique contribution was valued and that we were counting on each and every one of them.”

As in the past, the float committee spent a lot of time brainstorming designs and choosing one they thought best fit that year's homecoming theme. Dan decided that the traditional process needed something else to engage students. So he asked some members of the committee to build a model of the float they envisioned. They could then use the model to encourage students to sign up for specific parts of the float project rather than having people show up night after night and just jump in for sawing, hammering, and painting as they had done in years past.

Once the students had signed up for the portion of the float they wanted to work on, Dan led a smaller group to create a list of the specific tasks that needed to be done. The students could then pick from the list the work they wanted to do, factoring in the time they realistically had to contribute and what they thought they'd be good at doing. This strategy made a huge difference in how everyone engaged in the project. With everyone having a choice about what they would do and being asked to be honest about the time they had to contribute, Dan and his committee were able to spread the work out more efficiently and avoid the chaos and disengagement that had characterized their float building in the past. “There was no way people could fade away, because they had signed up for the job they wanted and had committed to it,” Dan explained. “Students signing up for the float also really liked the fact that they weren't assigned something, but had a chance to provide input on what they wanted to do.”

By providing them latitude in the roles they would play, Dan was able to influence the attitude students brought to the project. As a result, most kept their commitments. In addition, because Dan gave people the opportunity to sign up for as much or as little as they realistically could afford, their commitment was stronger. The float committee had far fewer no-shows than in any previous year. People weren't overcommitted, and they knew what they were doing, so nobody bailed. There was much less frustration and much more efficiency and organization in the planning and construction process. “Everyone seemed to simply enjoy their work much more,” Dan told us. “The enthusiasm kept on going, and the whole process was fun.”

Having latitude in how they do their work strengthens people. They grow when they're allowed to try new things and make decisions that affect how they do their work without having to check with someone else.³ Effective leaders are not control freaks. Nor are they wedded to a standard set of rules, procedures, or schedules. You need to give people sufficient freedom and choice in deciding how to do their work. The payoff will be significant. Our research shows that when student leaders more frequently “support the decisions that people make on their own,” people are significantly more engaged in their organizations, feeling more productive and appreciated.

Foster Accountability

When people take personal responsibility and are held accountable for their actions, their colleagues are much more inclined to work with them and are more motivated to cooperate in general. Individual accountability is a critical element of every collaborative effort. Each person must do his or her part for a group to function effectively.

Mykell Bates had played soccer from the age of fourteen and was chosen captain of the US Under-17 national team when he was just fifteen years old. When he went on to college, his soccer playing continued, and in his sophomore year, Mykell was chosen captain of his school's team. Being captain entailed many more organizational duties than Mykell was used to, both on and off the field. “At first I tried to do it all,” Mykell told us, “but then it occurred to me, since we depend on each other on the field, shouldn't I depend on them off the field too?”

Mykell began to reach out to his teammates to take on some of the communication duties for the team, he told us.

We all play an important part in our success on the field, so all I was asking for was that same level of accountability and connection to the team off the field. When I'd ask a player, “Hey, can you text the guys about the team meeting tonight?” they always stepped up.

Slowly Mykell began passing on responsibilities to more members of the team. Ultimately, it became clear that spreading out some of the tasks was a much more efficient way of doing things, and it helped all those who contributed feel accountable for the successful operation of the team.

What Mykell was doing with his team is what student leaders do to foster accountability: they consciously create an environment where team members count on one another to get done what needs to get done. This doesn't mean they are autocratic or controlling. His teammate Brandon Zimmerman told us,

Mykell was not directive in handing out tasks; he would simply ask for your help, and you would want to help him. He trusted that I could do the job that needed to be done, and I didn't want to break that trust. It was mutual respect, for each other and for the good of the team.

Leaders like Mykell appreciate a fundamental truth about strengthening others: the power to choose rests on the willingness to be held accountable. They know that the more freedom of choice people have, the more personal responsibility they must accept. There's also a bonus: the more that people believe that everyone else is taking responsibility for his or her part of the project—and has the competence to do it—the more trusting and the more cooperative they're going to be with one another. People will be more confident and committed to doing their part when they believe others will do theirs.

Some students believe that groups, teams, and other cooperative experiences minimize individual accountability. They argue that if their classmates are encouraged to work collectively, somehow they'll take less responsibility for their actions than if they are encouraged to compete or to do things on their own. Think about a group project for a class. If there are a lot of individuals in the group, do you think that people are less likely to worry about what happens if they don't do their part? It's true that some people become social loafers when working in groups, slacking off while others do their jobs for them. However, this doesn't last for long, because their classmates quickly tire of carrying the extra load. Either the slacker steps up to the responsibility, or the team wants that person removed—provided the team has shared goals and shared accountability.⁴

Enhancing self-determination means giving people control over their lives. It means you need to give them something of substance to control and to be accountable for. Define roles broadly—as projects, not tasks––and find ways to ensure that everyone is part of the decision-making process. Make certain that everyone in your group, no matter the task or job, has someone they are serving (that is, someone they feel accountable to). Ask group members to do things that are not part of their regular routine and to stay up-to-date on what is going on. Keep in mind that you also need to provide the necessary resources—for example, materials, money, and time, as well as information—for people to perform autonomously. There's nothing more disempowering than to have lots of responsibility for doing something, but nothing to do it with.

Educate and Share Information

People can't do what they don't know how to do. Therefore, when you increase the latitude and discretion of your team members, you also need to increase training and development opportunities. When people aren't sure about how to perform critical tasks or are fearful of making mistakes, they may be reluctant to exercise their judgment. Developing the competence and confidence of each member in a group is a virtuous cycle that makes everyone involved feel more qualified, more capable, more effective, and more like leaders themselves. It's your job as a leader to instill these feelings. That was the job that Christina Beige took on when she was selected, along with faculty and staff across the campus, to serve on her university's Energy Task Force.

The year before Christina joined the task force, there had been an initiative led by the Student Alliance for a Green Earth (SAGE) to institute a “Green Fee,” but the university president felt that there was insufficient evidence of overall student support and did not enact the fee. Christina's task force had come up with numerous green projects, policy plans, and publicity efforts to make the school more environmentally friendly. “This was a fantastic effort,” Christina said, “but I knew it would go nowhere if there was no funding. I had to take action.” She wrote a resolution for a $10 Green Fee designed to fund various projects and promotional efforts to boost environmental awareness and responsibility on campus. She presented the Green Fee resolution to the school's student senate, with a detailed outline of how to spend the $200,000 assessment.

The student senate was hesitant, feeling that the previous student body survey needed to be conducted again to provide solid evidence of support. So Christina and SAGE, along with other supportive students across campus, reached out again to educate the student body about the fee. They were competing at the time with a proposal from athletics to raise the athletic fee and appeared to be outnumbered and outspent every step of the way. “But we didn't stop,” Christina told us. “We had a lot of good information on something we believed the student body really cared about, and we believed that if we could share it with the students, we'd have a fair shot.” Their knowledge sharing paid off big-time. Armed with facts and figures about the impact of the projects the Green Fee would fund, students overwhelmingly supported it, with 75 percent of them eventually approving the fee increase.

Christina's experience demonstrates that sharing information with others is a crucial task for leaders who want to make extraordinary things happen. Recall that sharing information shows up consistently on the list of what makes people feel powerful, whereas the lack of information makes them feel powerless. For leaders, developing the competence and confidence of the people on their team so that they are more qualified, more capable, and more effective—and so that they are leaders themselves—reflects their appreciation of the truth that they can't get anything extraordinary accomplished all by themselves. Making people smarter is the job of every leader. If the people in your group aren't growing and learning from the projects and activities they are involved in, they're likely to leave and find more fulfilling opportunities elsewhere.

Organize Work to Build Competence and Ownership

A leader's job is to enrich the responsibilities of the group members so that they experience variety in their tasks, and opportunities to make meaningful decisions about how things get done. Do as exemplary student leaders do and organize assignments so that people feel that their work is relevant to the group's or organization's pressing concerns. Make sure that everyone feels well represented on the committees, teams, and problem-solving groups dealing with the important matters in your organization. Involve them in programs, meetings, and decisions that have a direct impact on what they are being asked to do. Actions like these build competence and promote a sense of ownership and accountability.

This was another lesson that Dan Samuels learned from his personal-best leadership experience in the homecoming float project. Traditionally, the job assignments had been organized by general tasks: construction, painting, decorating, and so forth. Students would sign up for one type of task, and that was it. Dan had a different idea about how to organize things. “In the past, people were encouraged to sign up for something they felt they knew how to do or had done before, like painting,” Dan explained. “The result was that often people just got sick of painting; they felt pigeonholed.” Dan thought, why not let people try a new skill? If they are good at painting, they could do that, but maybe they want to learn how to do some of the construction. “If we helped people get some new experience and skill,” Dan told us, “that would put us in a better position for getting the work done, and make it easier in future years too.”

This approach increased everyone's ownership in the project. It meant that the subgroups had to coordinate their efforts for the project to be successful. Everyone needed to take ownership of the section of the float they signed up for so that the whole project would come together at the end and look like a coherent construction. By organizing the project in this way, the students would be dependent on each other to get the final project done. This approach also demanded that the quality of each section be consistent, so the groups had to coordinate to meet one another's standards. Altogether, the students' work on the float was done in a way that built their confidence and encouraged ownership; more people were fully engaged in the project than ever before. And there was another payoff: the float took first place in the judging competition.

Student leaders like Dan know how important it is to turn tasks, assignments, and projects into opportunities to increase people's knowledge and skills and to build ownership. For people to feel like owners, they need to be able to understand what is going on to the extent that any “owner” would expect. If they are going to work together effectively, your team needs to be able to know the answers to such questions as: Who are the people we serve, and for whom do we exist? How do they perceive us? How do we know whether we're doing what we should be doing for them? How have we done recently? What can we do that is new and better in the next six months?

Foster Self-Confidence

Even if people know how to do something, a lack of confidence may stop them from doing it. Without sufficient self-confidence, people won't have the commitment required for taking on tough challenges. Low self-confidence manifests itself in feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and often crippling self-doubt. By building people's belief in themselves, you are bolstering their inner strength to forge ahead in uncharted terrain, to make tough choices, to face opposition, and the like because they believe in their skills and decision-making abilities, as well as yours.⁵

Encouraging self-confidence is what Amy and Zachariah did when they structured the alternative spring break so that the whole experience rested on the participants' shoulders. It's what Francis did when he provided people the opportunity to participate in various parts of the drama club's activities, and what Dan did in letting people work on any part of the homecoming float they wanted to. It's what Mykell was doing when he started spreading around the tasks and responsibilities that traditionally had belonged to the soccer team captain. “When Mykell asked me to do something, it instilled confidence in my abilities,” teammate Brandon Zimmerman told us.

When he would ask me to take on some of his day-to-day responsibilities, it gave me the confidence and competence to perform those tasks. All Mykell did was give me the authority to use the skills that he believed I already had, but maybe I wasn't acknowledging in myself. The more he did this, the more it worked to the advantage of the group as a whole because each of us became stronger.

People's having confidence and believing in their ability to handle the job, no matter how difficult, are essential in promoting and sustaining consistent efforts. By communicating to your group that you believe they can be successful, you help people push themselves beyond their self-limiting boundaries.

Coach

Although it's true that exemplary student leaders communicate their confidence in others, you can't just tell people they can do something if they can't. Leaders need to provide coaching, because no one ever got to be the best at anything without constructive feedback, probing questions, and active teaching by respected coaches. In strengthening others, you must not only have high expectations for them but also gently guide them by expressing your confidence in their ability to make good choices, backing them up when they make mistakes, helping them learn from experiences, and supporting their decisions. Often this is incremental, in the fashion of small wins, so that people don't feel overwhelmed and stressed out by the gap between their abilities and skills and their initial performance.

Anthony Gochenour worked throughout college as one of the building managers of the student union at his midwestern college, eventually becoming the senior building manager and leader of the student employment team. His greatest challenge, he told us, was getting the staff, comprising three different teams of student employees, to appreciate how important their work was and to be motivated to develop their ability to do their jobs better.

Anthony saw their day-to-day apathetic attitudes and their lack of commitment to the job as major problems because the student union was probably the most used building on campus. He began to think about the routine work the staff had to do and looked at these tasks from the perspective of how important they were in serving students who used the building. From there, he began to guide different members of the teams to focus on particular tasks so that the many things they had to do wouldn't seem so overwhelming.

After breaking the whole job down and connecting the student workers to responsibilities that appealed to them, Anthony coached them one by one, working alongside them to give pointers and feedback on how they were doing. Over time, team members could see how progress in their smaller assignments contributed to the bigger picture, and they could see the impact each of them had on what happened in the building. With Anthony's support, the student teams came to appreciate that their work didn't just keep the building running but shaped the experience of everyone who used the building.

Student leaders like Anthony never take control away from others. They leave it to their group members to make choices and assume responsibility for them. When leaders coach, educate, enhance self-determination, and otherwise share power, they're demonstrating deep trust in and respect for others' abilities. When leaders help others grow and develop, others reciprocate. People who feel capable of influencing their leaders are more strongly attached to those leaders and more committed to effectively carrying out their responsibilities.⁶

Good coaches understand that strengthening others requires paying attention and believing that people are smart enough to figure things out for themselves when given the opportunity to make choices, provided with support, and offered feedback. Coaching stretches people to grow, develops their capabilities, and provides them with opportunities to both hone and enhance their skills in challenging assignments.

Good coaches also ask good questions. The benefits of asking questions are numerous. For one, it gives people both the room to think and to frame issues from their perspective. Second, asking questions indicates an underlying trust in individuals' abilities by shifting accountability, and it has the benefit of creating almost immediate buy-in for the solution. (After all, it's their idea.) Asking questions puts leaders in a coaching role, more of a guiding role, which, in turn, frees them up to be thinking more strategically.

The success of every group or undertaking is a shared responsibility. As we said in Chapter 7, you can't do it alone. You need a competent and confident team, and the team needs a competent and confident coach. While you're at it, think about getting a coach yourself. There's no better way to model the behavior you expect from others than by doing it yourself.

Reflect

The second commitment of Enabling Others to Act requires leaders to strengthen others by increasing their self-determination and developing competence. Reflect on this commitment and answer these questions:

1. What is the most important idea or lesson about exemplary leadership that you learned from this chapter?

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2. What changes do you need to make in your leadership to better Strengthen Others?

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3. In the next section, there are some suggestions on what you can do to put Strengthen Others into practice. After you have reflected on what you learned and what you need to improve, select an action that you can take immediately to become a better leader.

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Take Action

Here are ways you can follow through on your commitment to Strengthen Others:

• Let people make choices about how they do their work. Structure tasks so that individuals have opportunities to use their judgment about how the job can be completed.
• Find a balance between people's skills and the work you are asking them to do. Provide opportunities that stretch them just outside their comfort zones, but not so far that they lose their confidence.
• Promote accountability by making sure that people have the necessary resources to complete their task or project.
• Share your personal influence and any organizational authority with others.
• Demonstrate in visible and concrete ways that you believe in the abilities of the people in your group.
• Set aside time to coach others, which begins by learning enough about the skills, interests, and aspirations of the people you are working with to determine how you can enable them to make the most of their talents.
• Solicit ideas from people and get them to take initiative in implementing them.