Letting your employees fail goes against logic and intuition. However, what if it’s just what is needed in building high-performing teams? Here’s how!
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Letting your employees fail is not as bad as it sounds. The best way to understand this is by analyzing how protective parents are with their children. When a child is in their toddler stage of life, most parents feel the need to jump in and help with everything. However, what most people don’t realize is how being a helicopter parent negatively affects their children's growth and development. The same applies to leadership.
Can a leader be TOO helpful?
Yes, a leader can be too helpful. Failure is an inevitable aspect of life. Everyone goes through some form of failure in their life that is meant to help them grow or improve in some way. Helping your employees and standing between them and their inevitable failure makes it hard for them to come up with a solution on their own. It stands in the way of them becoming self-sufficient and resilient.
Building high-performing teams requires a lot of risk-taking and vulnerability. If your team does not understand that they need to take risks and welcome the fear and failure that comes with it, then you are doomed. Letting your team fail makes them understand that failure is a stepping stone to growth and improved performance.
So, how do you know that you are too helpful? A few examples of helicopter leadership include:
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Solving an employee's problem before they get a chance to come up with a solution.
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Providing step-by-step instructions on how to accomplish or proceed with tasks.
Letting an employee fail vs letting an employee become a failure
There is a distinct difference between these two terms. When you allow your employees to fail, you give them a chance to process the error, grow, come up with solutions, and figure out which solution is effective. On the other hand, when you let your employee become a failure, you allow them to give up.
How failure helps in building high performing teams
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You are a facilitator
When you think about your leadership, are you more of a decision-maker or a facilitator? If you are a decision-maker then you are going about it all wrong. Decision-making will only make your team reliant on your direction and guidance. In turn, this will cripple them when you are not available to guide and instruct. However, if you are a facilitator, you will support your team's efforts and decisions. This will give them a chance to think for themselves and come up with sound solutions without your input. Therefore, your team will be a powerhouse.
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Support learning initiatives
Create a culture of personal and professional development for your employees. Make them understand that they need to keep improving their skills and expanding their knowledge. Focusing on professional and personal growth is an investment that will pay off in the future. Invest in micro-training, knowledge shares, and brainstorming sessions that cut across different departments.
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Be flexible and delegate
If your leadership style resembles that of a helicopter parent, you might have a hard time letting go of the control. List down the areas of the business that you are ready to delegate to someone. Once you delegate, do not supervise. Let the employees figure out how to manage that area by themselves. Only provide your input when requested to. Building high-performing teams will need you to surrender control.
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Stop over-correcting
When a member of your team provides input, don't correct your ideas just because they don’t think as you do. Analyze the idea and if it could possibly work, let your colleagues execute it. Just because someone else thinks or executes their ideas differently, doesn't mean that it is wrong. Give them a chance to stumble, fall, and get back up.
Do you trust your employees? Over-helping as a leader is a form of mistrust. It shows how much you don’t trust your team to complete tasks without your input or supervision. If you hire the right people with good qualifications, you shouldn’t have to worry about supervising and over helping.
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Support their failure
When a member of your team fails, refrain from talking down to them. Support, encourage and allow them to recover and come up with a better solution. Make them understand that failure is an opportunity to learn and grow.
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Ask questions
Instead of providing answers, try to ask questions and let your team come up with the answers. Letting them arrive at a solution alone will enhance their problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, which is a stepping-stone when building high-performing teams.
Conclusion
The greatest asset of any business or company is the employees. Having employees who are strong and skilled will do wonders for your business. Your team should be able to calculate the risk and come up with solutions without your input. How do you help them to do this? - by letting them fail.
