Leaders solve problems.

On a cohesive team, leaders are not there simply to represent the departments that they lead and manage but rather to solve problems that stand in the way of achieving success for the whole organization.  ~Patrick Lencioni

When I read this statement in Patrick Lencioni’s most recent book, The Advantage, I wanted to shout “Amen.”  I’ve bumped up against this phenomenon a number of times and I’m not sure I could think of another challenge that gets a leadership team stuck like this can.  I’ve seen it not only in organizations but also on volunteer committees and boards.  I discovered, personally, that even in a volunteer role this can stymie a group’s ability to move forward. 

Patrick’s continued explanation describes one of my personal experiences.

Like the representatives of Congress or the United Nations, too many leaders come to meetings with the unspoken assumption that they are there to lobby for and defend their constituents.  When they see that the agenda for a staff meeting has little if anything pertaining to their world, they do their best to avoid conversation in the hope that the meeting will end quickly.  Or they try to sneak in some busywork to attend to or perhaps even shift the focus of the meeting to something that involves them and their department.

My personal experience, even years later, still remains fresh in my mind.  The challenge was just one person who truly felt that their role was to defend their constituents.  That meant they were going to continue to disagree on an important issue which then made others feel guilty about trying to move forward without their agreement or support.  So there we were, stuck.  Achieving success for the whole organization seemed illusive and on more than one occasion I was tempted to literally bang my head against the table because that was exactly how I felt.  We kept repeating the same meeting, getting stuck at the same point as the one person continued to defend their constituents.  In the end, it wasn’t helpful to anyone and clearly didn’t benefit the organization.

I’ve run into this same struggle on a number of occasions when trying to help an organization develop a strategic plan and identify priorities for a specific period of time.  This process typically starts out with some positive momentum toward planning their future.  As we start to identify the top priorities, someone in the group will point out the fact that their department isn’t really highlighted or given “equal billing” in the strategic plan.  Then we begin down a path where again, people begin to feel guilty and want to support their colleague and we start to equalize instead of prioritize.  All of our effort to clarify priorities gets morphed into treating every department uniformly and the plan for the future becomes a report of what’s happening in the present.  That’s not solving problems; that’s making sure everything is equal and equal doesn’t mean fair and it certainly doesn’t mean strategic.

Patrick points out the key in the first few words of his quote: “on a cohesive team.”  If the team of leaders is truly cohesive, they are not only able, but wired to focus on the whole organization and solve problems.  They don’t get hung up on equal billing for every department or constituent; they are truly able to see the organization as a whole, regardless of their title or position.