"How the heck do I get my team to be more autonomous?" is a question most of my clients have asked me at some point (usually in exasperation).

Like the VP at a Fortune 500 company I worked with several years ago. Let's call her Abigail.

Like most of us, Abigail was exhausted from being on the “get it all done” treadmill. She spent far too much of her time managing the execution of projects and not enough time on the bigger picture strategy. So:

• Her team was doing a lot of doing but not in any particular direction (oof)
• Managing deliverables was taking up all of her time (double oof), and
• She was getting so involved in her teams’ projects that they never had a chance to stretch and grow their skills, so the leadership pipeline was weaker than it should’ve been (triple oof)

We worked together on switching her style from directing the team’s projects in detail to developing a vision for the team and then cascading it down through her department. She had to learn to stop getting into the weeds with her team and instead create high-level objectives, share them with her team, and then ask them to design and present well-thought-out execution plans.

Guess How The New Strategy Went

Predictably, it went terribly. The team was used to taking detailed direction from her, so their design your own plan from scratch muscles were nowhere to be found. Abigail would tell them the vision, tell them her success criteria and expectations, and then…they would get stuck immediately: What should I do now?

It's So Tough When Your Employees Are Stuck

WIMDIs, the temptation at this point as a manager is always to hop in and give them the next step.

I get it. The person sitting in front of you with a confused look on their face is floundering and has no clue what to do. The project is stalled and at risk of missing the deadline. You already know how to do all of this forwards and backwards in your sleep (obviously, because you’ve solved problems just like this hundreds of times now). Why not just…give them the answer and move on? You get to look like a smarty pants and you get to save the day while helping your team feel more comfortable. Nom nom for us, David!

But it’s a trap. Every time you step in and fill in the halp what do I do? space for your team, you stop them from learning how to do it. And you stop yourself from figuring out what’s actually in the way of them growing & stretching into the task you’ve given them.

What To Do Instead of Jumping Into The Weeds

My VP client Abigail and I developed a new action plan for those moments when she has a stuck, terrified, in-over-their-head person sitting in front of her:

But What if They Can't Even Answer That Question?

Yup! Been there!

This simple question will help most of your employees kickstart themselves into action, but you’ll get the odd one that still looks at you like a deer caught in the headlights. Then it’s helpful to drill down into a little more detail: