Hi, I'm Jeff Ikler, host of the Cultivating Curiosity podcast. It's summer, and our thoughts naturally turn to making the most of longer days and warmer weather. We're desperate to be outside. With that in mind, I'm periodically releasing mini episodes of "Cultivating Curiosity." In about 10 minutes, I'll dive deeper into a key point from a previously broadcast evergreen episode. The content in these mini episodes is designed to be readily applicable to your life or work. The idea This week's mini episode was inspired by a July 2021 interview with Dr. Melissa "Missie" Patschke. Missie has since retired, but at the time of our conversation, she was principal of Upper Providence Elementary School in the Spring-Ford Area School District in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Her message, born of 20+ years of experience and reinforced by the COVID pandemic, was 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 others' capacity 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-member crew was 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. Putting the idea to work OK, you're not the captain of a nuclear submarine, but if you're leading an organization, a department, or even a team, the implications of your collective work are significant. You need to be surrounded by thinkers and not just doers. If you buy into that wisdom, but you're not used to leading in an intent-based way, the next time someone comes into your office with a question, instead of providing the answer, start by asking the simple question: "What do you think we should do?" And probe with a follow-up question or two to get at their all important rationale. Asking the question "What do you think we should do?" with genuine curiosity may be the hardest shift for some managers who are used to and comfortable with simply giving direction. To build your own capacity to ask that open-ended question, show your inner critic the door and lead with the phrase "Hmmm, I don't know." And then ask, "What do you think we should do?" One note of caution: when you say, "I don't know," mean it. Don't play bingo with your staff by having them guess an answer you might already have in mind. The tone you use to open a discussion and invite their thinking is critical. In fact, try not to have the answer unless it's a desperate, time-sensitive situation. Be curious about the ideas your staff can generate. Probe for clarity and the ability to implement. Trust me on this. I made the mistake of not leading this way early in my career because I wanted everyone to rise to my brilliance. I wanted them to come to the answer that was in my head. That approach simply bred frustration and distrust among my staff.
