My personal leadership philosophy focuses on empowerment and setting people up for success.
Empowerment means that a person has specific responsibility over a particular area or effort / project, and that everyone has a clear understanding of her/his role. This latter piece plays a significant role in setting them up for success.
In contrast, leveraging people to simply “help out” with a particular task is ill-suited for true long-term growth. I encourage people to not just “help out”, but to “take ownership” over a specific deliverable and ensure that all aspects of that deliverable are analyzed and managed accordingly.
(The key precursor to doing this is to analyze the problem at a high-level and partition accordingly. Utilizing a “divide and conquer” strategy is key.)
Another aspect to this leadership philosophy is to leverage an individuals strengths AND interests. For example, if an associate excels at requirements analysis but loathes the activity, it’s not going to be in either party’s interest to put that person in that particular role. You might be empowering them, but you are not setting them up for success.
From a managerial perspective, I focus more heavily on “foundational” elements before empowering associates to take on new tasks / assignments. One of these foundational elements focuses on values. What an associate values will play a significant role in helping them choose one direction over another.
For example, if an associate values “harmonious relationships” over “advancement”, it’s likely that the associate will be happier in a group with a good team dynamic than vs. being promoted within a team lacking such a dynamic.
Once a person’s value assessment is complete (there should be 10 core values), a formal “talent builder” and “skills assessment” should be next on the agenda. This will help the associate refine their current tasks to align with their interests, and it can also help guide the associate towards a new role if there is existing misalignment.
It’s only after these two steps where both short-term and long-term plans can be formulated. Once this is performed, then the leadership principles discussed earlier can be applied.