The Cupcake Problem

Leadership team is a noun. Leadership is a verb. There was a time I confused them. I thought they were the same.

It was COVID. Someone who had been my advisor was now leading her own team. That team had just hit a big milestone supporting Manitoba businesses, so she threw them a "party" with cupcakes.

The only people not celebrating were her peers.

Instead they were asking: Who paid for it? Did she get approval?

I was disappointed those were the questions she got. It never occurred to the other managers to do this, and they were angry.

They weren't angry that she had broken a rule. They were angry she'd proven there wasn't one.

None of them were at my leadership table. Neither was she.

So why did she lead her team so differently than her peers?

Because she believed she could. She believed she could because she had seen it. Her ADM showed her. So did I. I was the deputy.

What I didn't understand at first was why the others didn't see it.

The people who were angry weren't on the leadership team. They reported to the people who were.

I had come into government with a limited understanding of the policy and the culture. I had assumed my leadership team felt they could act with authority because I did. Two years, and I never checked. When I did, I saw my team didn't just doubt their own authority. They were teaching their people to doubt it too.

I thought modelling my own authority was enough. It wasn't. They had learned to wait for approval, and modelling didn't undo years of that. They felt could act on what they were told.

And I hadn't told them.

I had a table full of people waiting for permission I never gave. I had built a leadership team but I hadn't given them room to lead. That was on me

It's not enough to have a leadership team. We have to assess, coach, and mentor the people at that table. Otherwise it's just another team.

So this week, find one person on your team waiting for permission they already have.

Tell them. Don't wait for the cupcakes.

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