Getting out of the way

Donald Trump is in the headlines every single day, with some pronouncement or executive order or tweet or fight. It gives the impression of a very active, busy government. We are led to believe that there is a lot happening, a lot being achieved, whether we approve of it or not.

In my experience, more often the exact opposite is the case. The loudest leaders often preside over the least effective administrations, at least measured by the legislative changes they bring about.

I saw this effect first hand many times in business. It led to my favourite advice for new line managers – whenever you can just get out of the way.

Human systems tend to make remarkable progress all on their own. It helps to have some accepted and functioning institutions, as simple as accepted roles within a family or as complex as a judicial system. But the whole essence of human progress is our ability to work together, share our experiences and our ideas, and then make incremental improvements to how things are done.

A large business is much the same. Often the institutions are particularly strong, since power structures tend to be very clear and contracts, rules and rewards abound. Where incentives don’t align with the goals of the enterprise it is usually obvious and relatively easily adjusted.

What do good leaders do in these organisations? They focus where they can make a difference and otherwise get out of the way. Whether the CEO or a humble line manager, recruitment is always important, and so is team morale, influenced by incentives and growth opportunities and offering support. A good leader will set clear goals for different time periods, and adapt these as circumstances change. Values and behaviours are emphasised and role modelled. A good leader will lubricate collaboration, encouraging teamwork and giving open access to other teams and their own boss. They will execute their own day-to-day work, and then they will promote a limited number of key initiatives and make sure these are well managed as projects. Disrupting initiatives are necessary from time to time, such as major reorganisations, but these are given the time and attention they require while retaining some focus on everything else.

This list does not sound all that hard, but in practice there are many ways to fail. Leadership can be lonely, while distractions are everywhere, often starting with an ineffective boss. Personal motives can get in the way, especially under pressure or where competence or confidence is lacking. Most of us are promoted above our level of competence eventually. Being a good boss takes a lot of time and results in little thanks.

The best way to judge a failing leader is not by looking for bad initiatives or events that do happen, but rather at good things that don’t happen. This is hard, because you are looking for absence, something that is obscure. This difficulty in observing failure may be a key reason so many poor leaders are permitted to continue failing for so long.

The symptoms and immediate causes will vary, but the results will usually be the same.

There is the leader or team that pins all its hopes on some major change, usually underpinned by dogma or motivated by glory or hubris. Occasionally they are right, even necessary, but often the dogma does not take full account of the context and is anyway flawed. Even if right, rarely is such a change implemented properly over a long enough period, including winning over staff. But the biggest problem is that the whirlwind paralyses everything else, and all the beneficial incremental improvements stop.

This is a tempting trap, one I fell into many times. We become obsessed with some constraint and think all our problems would be solved by relieving it. In fuel retailing, we used to oscillate between company and dealer management. What we forgot to take sufficient account of were the costs of change and the opportunity costs of disruption.

More common is the leader too fearful to get out of the way. They will hide by doing work themselves that could be delegated. They will try to mico-manage the impressions given to their own boss, in practice becoming a bottleneck, a source or excessive caution, and a poor motivator. The agenda can be the correct one, but it is implemented too haltingly to be effective.

The same list of good leadership practices apply in politics. There are some very good current examples. The UK is one, with Brexit. It may not be all the fault of Theresa May, but Brexit has become the all-subsuming dogmatic change initiative. Look beyond Brexit – what else has her government achieved? Further, look at the manifestos for the current election, and observe the absence of incremental reform. Brexit itself will do harm to Britain, but just as harmful will be the way it stifles other good reform. Even the high-quality British civil service, usually a great defence against poor political leadership, has lost some of its capacity for good reform.

The next example is the US congress; this one has been failing for far longer. As a system set up for conflict, it may not seem as much like a business, but there are similarities. Incremental improvements define success, yet require teamwork, courage and an absence of distractions. Results betray the failings: recent congresses have passes less and less meaningful legislation, and meanwhile infrastructure collapses and key institutions wither.

On the plus side, Angela Merkel as usual provides a good template. With patience and persistence and supported by a functioning parliament and strong civil service, incremental improvements generate strong outcomes. People complain about how apparent lack of a guiding direction or signature policies. But values and competence have proven a sufficient recipe. Macron campaigned in a similar way, so I am optimistic for his impact on France as well. The much-derided Brussels bureaucrats do a decent job as well. Regulated bananas or not, key European structures are in far better shape than those in the US. Look at healthcare, education, infrastructure or competition law. All function quite well in Europe but are essentially broken in the US.

And the US now has the classic example of the leader doomed to fail in Donald Trump. There is dogma and bluster aplenty, and a tendency to react to every event rather than pursue sustainable gains. Recruitment is a disaster, values and consistency are absent and goals are vague and reversible on a whim.

We will see some of the results in the years ahead. But the saddest part will be the results we won’t see because of their absence. Hidden, smart, incremental progress feels impossible under this leadership, and already we can see the effects if we look carefully. The Obama state department held up a civil war in Congo through quiet, engaged diplomacy but since January things have only deteriorated. I can’t imagine much progress being made with Cuba. Domestically, knotty issues will only atrophy.

The dogma and its impacts are bad. Once again, unnecessary wars will be provoked and climate progress wilfully jettisoned. But sheer incompetence may actually do even more lasting damage, even though we will have to peer hard to measure it.

And, once again, remember the good mantra. As a line manager, perhaps your greatest opportunity is to get out of the way. If ever you need convincing, there are some great negative role models out there to show you the ways to avoid.