Over the last couple of days, I've been doing a series about developing leaders and passing the baton, so your business or church can grow beyond yourself. If you haven't checked the previous posts out, do that first. Go ahead, I'll wait . . .
If you're hiring people to be part of your team, you want them to bring excellence and expertise to their areas. They are being hired to bring areas of your company or ministries in your church to new levels. But, like we talked about yesterday, you have to be careful about just setting them loose without fully understanding the culture and without the relationships in place. At the beginning you will have more direction and they will have less freedom. But, you need to move more and more to less direction and more freedom.
These leaders need to have the responsibility for their areas AND the authority to carry out those responsibilities and make the calls in line with those things that are "vision critical". If they have the authority but not the responsibility, it will be disasterous. They will be positionally leading, but those who are responsible will have to answer for their decisions. It' only a matter of time until things will go south.
If they are responsible, but don't have authority, they are simply task-masters. They are accomplishing what needs to be done, but will lack the ownership and the passion to take things to the next level. AND, good leaders will eventually get frustrated and leave for somewhere else, where they can have the authority.
I remember years ago in a church where a deacon board was trying to get me to make a decision that I knew would not be in the best interest of the ministry I was responsible for. There were all sorts of issues with their "suggestions" and not a single one them was closely tied to the ministry that I was leading. I was frustrated. They had hired me to lead, but were not fully giving me the authority to do what I knew was best.
Our leaders need to be given the authority and responsibility to lead. BUT, that doesn't mean they need to have the same authority as you do. You started the business from scratch, you dreamed of the church when there was nothing, God gave you the vision. Those levels of authority are earned over the long haul. Authority doesn't mean the same level of authority that the point leader has. At the end of the day, you're having to make the calls, you're having to live with where this is all headed. You are the one that feels the weight and responsibility for the employees that your company takes care of, and their families that are dependent on that income, etc.
Have you given authority but they aren't responsible for the decisions they are making? Have you given responsibility, but they don't have the authority to lead? If we're going to effectively "pass the baton", our emerging leaders will need both.