Don’t overstep boundaries
Delegation is a balancing act between allowing others to make decisions while still keeping tabs on what’s going on with the company.
“A president must be intimately involved in daily operations in order to make the proper decisions, which could dramatically impact the company’s future,” she says. “I believe those that stay behind closed doors and do not visit with their troops and customers are setting themselves up for failure. Many corporate insolvencies we have witnessed over the years are a direct result of CEOs not being aware of the detailed operations of their company, competitive initiatives in the marketplace or what it takes to keep their customers satisfied and loyal.”
Communication of expectations is the key to achieving goals while allowing managers to exercise authority.
“A CEO must set the guidelines and parameters upon which their executives will be judged,” Lehne says. “This must be communicated personally and embraced by each manager. Results management is the key here. There is no ‘best’ method for managing every department, so each department head needs to be able to utilize his/her own unique style. Nothing will kill the productivity and enthusiasm of company management faster than second-guessing or micromanaging. In fact, by so doing, the human resources placed in roles of extreme responsibility will not perform at an optimum level and, most likely, won’t tell their CEO when the train is about to fall off the tracks.”
While you want to stay in contact with employees after gearing your leadership style toward delegation, you want to be careful not to interfere when an issue arises.
“Typically, if there’s an issue with the middle manager, usually their direct supervisor … would take care of the situation,” she says. “I may have some input in that, but I’d leave it up to them, because I don’t try to overstep them because that kind of devalues their position.”
While you want to allow the direct supervisors to make decisions, you don’t want them to forget to work as a team.
“They sometimes come to me or I come to them and say, ‘I understand, or hear this. What do you think about this? Have you thought about that?’ We bounce ideas off of each other and it’s just kind of a team effort I would say,” she says.
If you are working on a project with a middle manager, don’t feel guilty skipping over your executive team and speaking directly with the middle manager.
However, if there is an overall issue with a middle manager, Lehne lets the direct supervisor handle that.
That can be problematic because of the open-door policy Lehne stresses. Because her door is open, sometimes employees might come right to her with a problem.
“I’m in the office; my door is always open,” she says. “I don’t work behind a closed door. I’m right by dispatch where the drivers come and go. Other people are walking around, so it’s not that you have to have an appointment. People just come in, and if they have an issue, they just com
e in and talk about it.”
While you may want to try to solve the problem right away, don’t forget about that person’s direct supervisor.
“It depends on the topic,” she says. “I may say, ‘Have you discussed it with your manager?’ If not, I’ll say, ‘Well, let me talk with them about it and I’ll get back to you.’ I don’t usually make a lot of decisions without talking to the manager first because I’m not sure what they may have already discussed with the employee.”
To avoid uncomfortable situations where employees are skipping levels to come to you with a problem, you have to stress to a new hire that, while there is an open-door policy, there is chain of command.
“It’s understood when they are hired and with different meetings,” she says. “They are told, ‘The manager is the first point of contact. If you have an issue with that, please go to HR. If you have an issue with that, go to the owner.’
“It’s probably communicated some when they first get here, then through working here. I think a lot of that is pretty common sense. You go to your managers first.”
