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Steve Jobs famously said that “it doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Unfortunately, this continues to happen in many organizations. Leaders hire the best and brightest in their field, and then second guess their every decision and recommendations.
To me, the root cause of this is leader insecurity.
In their desire to demonstrate their worth, insecure leaders create false value. They nit-pick on choice of words, add or subtract sentences to reports, and ask the team to address improbable hypotheticals. All of these add no real value other than to demonstrate to the higherups that they “know more than their staff.” The outcome of such behavior is the capping of the organization’s potential to the leader’s capabilities.
I therefore say, hire the best, trust them, and get out of their way. Your job, as their leader, is to point them in the right direction and ensure that they have the resources to succeed.
