I am again pleased to have Bill Malkemes as a guest blogger this week. You’ll find some background on Bill at the end of this post. Enough rambling – here are Bill’s thoughts:

I was reading some of the leadership material on this blog. Since I have seen Mike in action mentoring young leaders at a National Conference on Ethics in America (and was pretty impressed with his results), I thought I would see if I could write a short message at a macro level that may be useful to other readers then talk about a subject or two at the micro level.

In my case I can be referred to as an “experienced” leader. As the head of my organization of high achievers it can be quite competitive for assignment of key tasks and appropriate recognition of accomplishments. In younger days it was fun to get into the details and solutions for the tasks, but now I am needed more in the management mode. So what I try to do is keep the organization vibrant with new and exciting work, appoint task leads in a fair manner, and turn them loose. I don’t call what I do leadership, although leadership does take different shapes and forms. From my perspective, I call it “steermanship.”

When the work comes to you as a manager or task leader, assess the starting status and the end state that is needed. With education and experience you also get a feel for the complexity of the work and key scheduling and/or decision points that you may have to assess along the way. Although you may have a way you would do the job, I have found it enlightening to give someone the job and desired end state and have them come up with the plan, needed resources and desired end state. What I find unproductive or missing at times for those with less experience is 1) the selection of personnel who can get the work done but not necessarily within a team concept and 2) having intermediate checkpoints to assess and redirect effort if needed. I let the task lead chose whom they want with them but hold final approval of their selections as there may be conflicting jobs requiring the same key personnel. I also have them put in some intermediate checkpoints for themselves to check their progress. I give suggestions when needed but not in a dictatorial way. Thus I don’t over-supervise but “steer” when appropriate.

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