“When are we supposed to do all that?” That’s the question we constantly get from new managers, only weeks or months into their positions, when we describe the three key activities they should be focusing on to be successful as leaders: building trust, building a team, and building a broader network. To their dismay, most of them have found they rarely end a day in their new positions having done what they planned to do. They spend most of their time solving unexpected problems and making sure their groups do their work on time, on budget, and up to standard. They feel desperately out of control because what’s urgent—the daily work—always seems to highjack what’s important—their ongoing work as managers and leaders.
So they push back because they think we’ve just made their to-do list even longer. And these key elements (we call them the “Three Imperatives of Leading and Managing”) are not quick and easy wins—they are substantial and fundamental to one’s ability to function effectively as a leader. Here’s why:
It is here, after covering these imperatives, that we hear the question, “When are we supposed to build trust, build a team, and create a network? How do we do that on top of everything else we have to do?”
Our answer is that the “Three Imperatives” and all that each embodies are not discrete tasks to put on a to-do. Instead, strong, effective leaders manage and lead through the daily work. They do this in the way they define, assign, structure, talk about, review, and generally guide that work. They are masters at using the daily work and its inevitable crises to perform their work as managers and leaders.
How do they do this?
They build trust by taking the opportunity to demonstrate their ability as they do their daily work, by asking knowledgeable questions and offering insightful suggestions. They use daily decisions and choices to illustrate their own values, expressing their concern for those who work for them or those for whom the group does its work. They reveal themselves, but not in an egotistical way, showing what they know, what they believe, and what they value—and in doing this, they show themselves to be trustworthy.
They build a team by using problems and crises in the daily work to remind members of the team’s purpose and what it values most. They explain their decisions in these terms. They immediately call out team members who violate a rule of engagement—treating each other disrespectfully, for example—or who place their interests above those of the team. And since the rules apply to all members, including the leader, they ask team members to hold the leader accountable if she ever forgets one of those rules.
They build a network by taking opportunities afforded by routine activities—a regular meeting of department heads, for example, or even a chance meeting in the elevator—to build and maintain relationships with colleagues outside their group. They consciously approach problems that involve another group leader in a way that both solves the problem and fosters a long-term relationship. They proactively share information with outsiders who would benefit from it. They encourage their group members to take the same approach when they deal with outsiders.
These are obviously only a few of the ways good managers use their daily work to fulfill the deeper imperatives of leadership, but you get the idea. In fact, if there’s anything that might be called a “secret” for not getting overwhelmed by the challenges of becoming an effective manager, this is surely it. We’ve seen new managers light up when they finally grasp this principle: that the daily work isn’t an impediment to doing what good leaders do. Instead, it’s the way, the vehicle, to do most of what good managers do.
Once they learn this lesson, they look at their daily work differently. For every new task, for every unexpected problem, they take a moment to step back and ask, How can I use this to foster trust? To build and strengthen us as a team? To expand our network and make it stronger?
LINDA A. HILL is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She is the author of Becoming a Manager and a coauthor of Being the Boss and Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014). KENT LINEBACK spent many years as a manager and an executive in business and government. He is a coauthor of Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014).
Reprinted from hbr.org, originally published
September 24, 2015 (product #H02DCU).