By Nokomis Advisory Services associate Ben Morley
In history—whether military, political, or business—there are strategists and tacticians. The successful leaders have foundational understandings of the role they play as strategists for the organization. Conversely, failed organizations typically show evidence of leaders who reversed these roles, thinking they were tacticians when in fact they were strategists.
In the military, leaders who successfully understood their roles as strategists would communicate their ‘tight targets’—whether a mission, project, or exercise—then step back and let their Commanders, who were tacticians, carry out the strategy the leader gave. Successful leaders did not over control and micromanage what came next.
The leaders I saw fail in their roles almost always acted as if they were tacticians. This faulty mindset caused them to become micromanagers and pull the organization down. When Commanders would voice their concerns and provide a differing opinion, these leaders would not listen and continue bulldozing their own ideas through the team.
Situation: A retail store experienced declining customer satisfaction and longer checkout times. The business owner, lacking recent point-of-sale and customer service experience, decided to personally intervene without consulting the store manager or experienced staff, implementing new procedures and overseeing daily operations. Intervention: The owner’s micromanagement included:
- Contradicting established procedures and staff training
- Making real-time corrections to employee-customer interactions
- Bypassing the store manager to give direct orders to all staff
- Implementing conflicting policies without proper communication
- Assuming ownership equated to operational expertise
Result: The intervention backfired significantly:
- Employee morale plummeted due to conflicting directives and feeling undermined
- Customer experience worsened from inconsistent service and workplace tension
- The store manager resigned after their credibility was damaged
- Staff turnover increased as experienced employees left
- Original problems actually worsened, requiring months of rebuilding and retraining
In many ways, Tacticians are Specialists, and Strategists are Generalists. It is a competency issue; leaders need to understand there is a difference between their authority and their competency. Your authority is broad; your competency is narrow. You may be in charge of everyone, but you’re not as skilled as they are in their respective specialties. Your authority puts you in the room and in charge, but you should remain silent when someone else is speaking about their specialty.
The successful leaders give a tight target, then stop trying to control everyone they brought onto the team because these people are experts in their fields. Tight targets and loose controls is a good way for a plan to become successful. They don’t overmanage the people that are better at this than they are.
Remember: be tight on defining the target, but loose on controlling how your experts achieve it.