Winning Wednesday #5

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When you're leading a team and responsible for their outcomes, it can be hard to let go of the reins and let them do their thing. Yet, the research on unleashing high performance suggests that to get better performance, creativity, and innovation, leaders have to promote their team's autonomy. 

For most high-achieving leaders, the idea of not being as involved in your employee's or team's performance is a little bit scary. After all, there's a reason you've been successful. It often required you to manage a ton of details, catch mistakes, and perform at a level that others had a hard time keeping up with.

But when you are elevated to a leadership role, you can't take that same approach. You don't have the time to manage and execute all of your team's work, even if you tried.

You need to find a way to encourage them to take ownership of their work and produce at the level you need.

Here's a short list of ways you can promote your team's autonomy:

• Show and tell your team you trust them. If you can give over power to execute and give your team your trust, they'll feel encouraged and empowered. It's not enough to just say "You have my support," you have to figure out when to give it and when to get out of the way. Once you know, follow through.

• Set goals with them. The quickest way to undermine someone's sense of ownership is to give them a goal. If they have no chance to provide input, the goal will be both less motivating and less internalized, which means it’s going to be less impactful. If you want to promote autonomy, you need to sit alongside your team members and develop goals with them.

• Acknowledge work well done. A big part of sustaining autonomous work and motivation is feeling confident that you can execute. By acknowledging what your people have done well, you encourage them to repeat that behavior and to build on what's worked in the past. You'll create a sense of confidence and competence, and your team will feel more empowered to deliver on their own and more motivated to do so.

Ultimately, promoting autonomy is promoting ownership. The leaders I know want their teams to feel accountable and responsible for delivering high-quality work on time. The best way to make that happen sustainably is to give them the tools to do it, and then get out of the way.

The benefits of promoting autonomy extend well beyond this sense of ownership, too. Your team will be more engaged and motivated. Team members will perceive the environment to be more helpful. You'll promote greater well-being for the people who are part of your organization.

The key is to get comfortable giving over some of your control. That can be scary. But the rewards are worth the risk when your team starts to show what they can do.