A big part of my consulting work involves training leaders as they enter new positions. One topic I always cover is how important it is to create a culture of empowering those you lead. Not only does it allow for the personal growth of your co-laborers, it is the only real way to cultivate healthy growth in an organization.

As a leader, it is tempting to try to control the actions and decisions of those you lead. You know the results you want and you know the leader will be blamed when things go badly. It seems the most logical route is to decide everything and make sure all plans executed are the ones out of your brain. Micromanaging seems a logical route to success.

It seems logical, but it couldn’t be more wrong. When you limit an organization to the ideas of one person, it will lead to a decline in morale and a culture of fear. And depressed, fearful teammates don’t do their job very well. It also often results in a burned-out leader. No leader can consistently try to do the work of multiple people and not physically and emotionally exhaust themselves.

My friend Deanna has a leadership podcast and her latest episode (worth every second of the 17 minutes it will take to listen) is on Permission-Giving Leadership. In the episode, Deanna mentions a habit she has that I share. She intentionally doesn’t learn how to do things she isn’t responsible for. She uses the example of registering for her conferences – when people ask her how to do it she says she doesn’t know. Because she doesn’t. I’ve been doing this for years as well. If someone takes on a task, I am very happy to not know the details of how they walk it out. It stops me from inserting myself into other people’s work. I manage them by making sure projects are moving forward and they are meeting deadlines, but how they choose to do that is up to them.

In 2017 my family went to Capone’s Dinner & Show in Kissimmee. It was a goofy night and challenging to explain to our Chinese exchange student whose English was not very good. Prohibition, bootlegging, and money-laundering make language barriers even higher. But we watched the show, ate our dinner, fake gambled and “got arrested” to the best of our abilities.

I bought a t-shirt from the gift shop which I found hilarious at the time. I’d wear it regularly because I got such as kick out of it. It seemed such an obvious thug perspective that I didn’t worry about someone seeing me in it and misinterpreting my personal philosophy.

As time has gone on, I’ve found the shirt much less funny. It actually depresses me instead of making me chuckle because I’ve run into so many leaders who genuinely believe making people fear them is the best way to lead. And not gangster types, but genuinely good people who think fear is the right motivator.

Can I tell you a secret? Those leaders are running on fear too. Fear of failure – fear of being ‘found out’ – fear of getting kicked out of the cool kid club – fear of being misunderstood (or understood!) – fear of loss of power – there are endless options for things they fear. Regardless of the motivation, the results are never good. Turnover is high, trust among team members is low, and new ideas and expansion are non-existent.

I’m heading South tomorrow to train a new leader. We’ll talk about a lot of opportunities and pitfalls in her new job, but one thing we’ll focus on is the need to empower those she leads by creating a culture of Permission-Giving leadership. Refusing to micromanage is not always comfortable (and can sometimes be downright risky), but will be the right thing to do for the leader and those she has been entrusted to lead.