Coordination

All the spokes are the folks

A leader’s role is to coordinate activities.  It isn't necessarily* to act on the activities.  (*check out our “Eat Your Own Cooking” post)

You need to get the right people to do the actual activities, specialists trained in the different work you need.  The manager is there to coordinate these people.

The manager and/or leader is the connection from the specialist to the business or organization.  You want the specialists focused on their work while you are finding the path to get to the end result.

You can look at it as being the hub of a wheel.  All the spokes are the folks that you're working with that have specializations, ideas, skills, and information.  They carry the workload.  The manager is the hub; he or she is connecting the team to the rest of that vehicle, the rest of the company, the rest of the organization.

When you are hiring people you are looking for good talent.  Talent that can accomplish the work and fill in the holes.  What missing pieces do you need to meet the objectives?  You are looking for specific skills to support the whole of the work.

You, the manager, are the conduit.  You transfer the communications.  If the organization has a message, you translate that to your team and employees.  Specifically, you are translating the message the way your team will receive it and fielding questions that your specific team will ask.  Once again, it is super important to understand your team and get to know them, on an individual level, so the you can translate accordingly.

Don’t get too deep in the weeds of the work, let your team do that.  Spend more time being the connection hub.