Too Many Sheep

I recently visited an organization that was suffering from what I call “too many sheep”. My first exposure to this organization of financial planners was at a seminar presenting their services to prospective clients. The seminar began with a brief introduction by one of the representatives, and then the office manager proceeded to deliver the rest of the material about the company and it’s services. It seemed somewhat unusual to me that the lion’s share of the material was presented by one person, given that there were several fairly experienced people in the room, and there was a lot of material to present. I felt it would have been more interesting if there had been a variety of presenters.

I did not give this situation more thought until I visited their offices a week later. In this second meeting my financial planner initiated our discussion; but very quickly called the office manager into the room to deliver a 45 minute presentation on the details of their service offerings. Again, it seemed odd to me that my representative, who had been working in that office for a few years, had turned the presentation over to his manager. At the conclusion of the presentation the office manager opened up to me. She expressed frustration over the fact that she was the only person in the office who was accountable. She went on to say that she was finding it hard to take care of her clients because she had to help all of the other representatives with their work.

When I see a situation like this I can’t help but wonder how it happened. Has the office manager inherited a group of weak individuals who do not have the ability to assume responsibility for aspects of running the business, or is this situation caused by a failure of leadership on the part of the office manager? It could be that the staff is weak, resulting in the need for the office manager feeling that she cannot delegate to them, but the problem is more with her leadership. Most people find it easy to fall in behind a strong individual and let that individual do all the work, particularly if they believe they can be successful without the additional burden of administrative responsibilities. People who behave in this manner are acting like sheep. It is the responsibility of the office manager, the leader, to delegate responsibilities; and to help the others in the office develop their skills. By continuing to assume responsibility for all the work, the manager is not only hurting herself, she is also hurting the organization and doing a disservice to the other people in the office. As long as she takes it all on herself, everything will appear to be working until the day she is not available, then the wheels start to fall off. What happens to the sheep when the shepherd does not show up for work?

One of the primary roles of a leader is to create more leaders. It is the leader’s responsibility to educate and empower their staff. Until a leader realizes that this is their job as a leader, the business will stagnate. In this case, the manager will continue to over-burden herself with everything involved in running the office, and the representatives will continue to lean on her. Ultimately the manager will get burned out and the more ambitious representatives will move on to jobs which are more challenging and more rewarding.

There are many factors contributing to this kind of problem, one of the more obvious is trust. Situations like this result from the manager not trusting her staff enough to let them take on more responsibilities. Perhaps she fears failure and believes it will cost her job if something goes wrong. Perhaps she doesn’t have confidence in the ability of her staff to take on responsibility. Without confidence there can be no trust. What she doesn’t realize is that if she does not trust her people, they will find it hard to trust her. Organizations suffering from this problem will struggle and ultimately fail. Unfortunately nothing will change until a disaster strikes, then it is too late.

How can a leader fix a problem like this before it becomes too late?

1. Start by educating and empowering her staff.
2. Provide the staff with opportunities to fail safely.
3. Show the staff that she has confidence in them.
4. Treat the staff like responsible/capable professionals, not sheep.

“Leadership is getting people to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.” – Tom Landry