Satyn Circle • 1 min read
How Can You Stop Solving Problems and Start Building Independent Thinkers?
If every difficult decision still comes back to you, telling your team to “take more ownership” will not fix the problem. Independent teams need something much more practical: clear authority, smarter escalation rules and managers who know when to coach, when to step back and when to intervene.
By editor
Premium readingThere is a frustrating stage many capable managers eventually reach. You have delegated more work, repeatedly told people to take ownership and encouraged the team to make decisions, yet the difficult questions still find their way back to you. You are still approving things that should no longer require approval, solving problems others should be able to solve and discovering that work slows down whenever you are unavailable.
The temptation is to conclude that the team simply needs to become more independent. But Building Independent Thinkers requires more than asking people to “use initiative”. Employees need to understand which decisions belong to them, what good judgement looks like, when the manager expects to be involved and what happens when a decision does not work.
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