Imagine asking your 10-year old self: Would you rather be a super hero or an orchestra conductor? While some musically inclined kids would opt to be the conductor, I bet 97 out of 100 kids would choose to be Iron Man, Wonderwoman, Black Panther, Scarlet Witch or one of the many from the pantheon of heroes.
Many leaders are still like their 10-year old selves, preferring to be the one to “save the day” versus the one that facilitates results by getting the most out of others.
Ironically, unless you are saving the world from Thanos, the act of “hero-ing” is actually disempowering for those on our teams. To be as effective as possible and get the most out of our teams, leaders need to shift from Hero to Conductor.1
The way Heroes and Conductors respond to challenges is completely different. The Hero constantly dives in and fixes the problem by shouldering the burden herself, robbing the team of the opportunity to learn how to tackle these challenges on their own.
The Conductor, on the other hand, can’t jump in and save the day when the orchestra is off, because it is humanly impossible for them to play all of the instruments at once. They have to rely on providing direction in the moment as well as the awareness and skill level of the musicians to get things back in rhythm.
What’s challenging is that taking on the role of the Hero is often rewarded by organizations and by our own feelings. For some of us, our identities are even tied up in being the Hero.
That said, over the long haul, leaders that tend to play the role of Hero risk being a bottleneck to progress and hold back their teams from reaching their full potential. As a result, their careers stall and at worst, they get completely burnt out.
Here are some practical tips to make the shift from Hero to Conductor:
Lead with deep listening. A Hero’s first instinct is to jump in and fix. A conductor’s first instinct is to attune and listen deeply to the orchestra. Listening deeply means you hear their words, their energy, their feelings, the pace and you even hear what is not said. This takes a massive amount of self-control, especially for those of us that are problem-solvers by nature.
Go deep in the right areas. Conductors have the ability to differentiate between the scale of issues. This means is that you learn to think about issues in terms of grains, pebbles, stones and boulders. If a boulder-size issue comes along, then have the wherewithal that immediate action is needed. For everything else, hone your ability to think through what are the questions your team needs to answer and then unleash them to work through those issues on their own. Even when the boulder size issues do arise, the purpose of diving into the details with the team is not to solve it for them, but to get a closer look so that you can support them to figure out how to resolve it as quickly as possible, since a long-lasting boulder-size issue can cause damage that is insurmountable.
Hire people that are better than you at specific skills you need on your team. In an orchestra, in most cases the violinist can play the violin exceedingly better than the conductor. Imagine an orchestra where the conductor was better at playing every instrument than the lead member that played that instrument. Sounds ridiculous right? As ridiculous as it would be for an orchestra conductor to do this, it is a common behavior among many leaders to only hire people that are less skilled than them and have less potential than them for fear that the Padawan will overtake the Master. As you evaluate new talent for your team, you should set a high enough bar on the scorecard that you recruit someone who is more skilled than you at what you need them to do.
Some questions I reflected on this week:
In what situations do I tend to take on the Hero role instead of the Conductor role?
What is one project, initiative or challenge in the upcoming week where I will have the opportunity to choose to shift to be a Conductor?
Similar to earlier reflection, this concept borrows heavily from Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman’s framing of the Drama Triangle. I tweak it slightly, preferring the Conductor metaphor to that of the Coach.
Thank you Sean. This article was an excellent fast follow from our conversation today.
This is the best article I’ve read in my time subscribed to your newsletter (about 2 months now). I appreciate how this post showed me where I need to go as a leader. As someone trying to help those around me excel, I need to assume the role of conductor. Very insightful and I appreciate you taking the time to write this.