And then wait for them to answer.
Jeff Ikler here for Kirsten Richert with our weekly “Getting Unstuck” mini-feature: “Worth a Listen, Look or Read.” Here in about five minutes, we extend the main idea of the week with some related content we found that may help you work toward your desired goals.
The idea
This week we chatted with Dr. Melissa “Missie” Patschke, principal of Upper Providence Elementary School located in the Spring-Ford Area School District in Southeastern Pennsylvania. https://bit.ly/3BH9l6N Her message, born out of 20+ years of experience and reinforced by COVID, is that organizations move forward with strength if they’re led by leaders, not a leader.
As a school leader, your role is not to be the person pulling everyone up that hill or being number one at all times. Your role is to build that capacity and be number two, so that other people can be number one. And the more number ones you build, the better you’re all going to be.
Taking the idea deeper
The necessity of building the capacity of others to lead is not a new idea. It’s not universally practiced, though, because leaders typically get stuck trying to build capacity in one of three ways:
Conceptually they get “it.” They get the need and wisdom behind growing others. But their inner critic pulls them aside, puts an arm around them, and whispers, “Yeah, but if they lead, what’s your role? How’s it going to make you look?”
They forget that “building” or “growing” ends in “i–n–g,” implying that it’s an ongoing process, or at least a process of gradual release. It’s not a one-and-done effort, meaning one day your staff is being led and the next day they’re leading.
As a leader, you just don’t know how.
So let’s take a small step toward number 3. In my mind, the best example of building capacity came from what may at first seem like the most unlikely of places: the military. We usually think of life in the military as giving and receiving orders: “I say ‘Jump!’” and you jump. But one savvy ship captain saw things differently.
When Captain David Marquet inherited what was then the worst performing submarine in the U.S. Navy, he immediately realized why: the 135 members of the crew were largely doers, not thinkers. They were used to taking and conditioned to take orders. But Marquet knew that to effectively run something as complex and as deadly as a nuclear submarine, you had to have people who were thinking about what they were doing and how what they were doing impacted the rest of the ship’s performance.
So he instituted “intent-based” leadership where crew members were helped to think about their role. Instead of waiting to be told what to do, they were taught to express a needed action with the simple phrase “I intend to… because.” The word “because” gave the Captain or one of the Chief Petty Officers essential context for understanding a crew member’s intended action. Initially, permission might need to be granted, but after the thinking culture was fully embedded and trust established, crew members simply barked “I intend to…because” and then acted.
Marquet reserved one action for himself, and you can guess what that was. After all, the ship was a deadly weapon of war.
The result, you ask? What had been the worst-performing submarine soon developed into the highest performing submarine in the U.S Navy.
For additional insight, watch the short video below.
