What is your management style? — The Single Point of Failure
The risk of having only one person with all the knowledge
Every manager, once they start their career, start asking questions like:
- Should I delegate more from now on?
- Should I be more transparent?
- Should I be the one who decides everything?
Those questions are relevant indeed. But the way you answer those questions defines your style. It’s convenient for managers to understand different styles and when to adopt them.
Let’s talk about a particular one I carefully call the Single Point of failure (SPoF) style. Be aware that I’m not advocating that it’s good or bad; instead, I’d like to discuss the pros and cons.
Right, but what does “Single Point of Failure” mean?
Consider yourself being duct tape used to stop a huge leaking. In essence, if — or more precisely, when — you break, all of the dependencies (the team, in this case) will crash. It’s easy for a manager with tremendous knowledge about the team’s problem space to become a SPoF. It’s natural and logical but dangerous if kept in the long run.
How to identify?
Let’s try to define a very straightforward way to diagnose it. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Does the team performance decrease when you are on vacation?
- Does the team get blocked when you are not there?
- Do you usually receive requests from them asking for a decision?
- Are you doing a task that could be delegated?
If you say “Yes” to at least 1 of those questions, you are probably the team's SPoF.
Why does it happen?
It might happen for several reasons. I’ll try to list some of the most common reasons that I’ve seen:
- When you are the most experienced in a team composed of more entry-level members.
- When you’ve been in a team for such a long time before becoming a manager (which was my case; been there, done that)
- Lack of trust between you and the team members.
What is the impact of being that way?
It may sound terrific when you read the SPoF definition. Nowadays, I think it’s important to understand this style and sometimes even adopt it when necessary. During a short period, it works fine. Being a SPoF during a crisis or even when you are accountable for a brand new team is okay. However, suppose you insist on being that way for a more extended period. In that case, you probably lose the opportunity to help the team members grow by teaching or delegating more.
Main takeaways
Remember that our job is to coach the team members along their careers to build trust and confidence. Those are the fundamentals for them to be empowered and follow their instincts when you are not there. And remember, it’s ok if they fail sometimes. Nobody should expect them to be perfect at their first shot.
It’s essential to have the right timing to move toward a more flexible style (subject to another post). It’s not easy to transition between styles on the same team. It demands time, effort, and patience. I’d recommend being transparent with your team about it and that you’re doing it intentionally. It might avoid some misunderstands between you and your team.
Being a SPoF is not always bad, but the perfect analogy is “The dose makes the poison.” Once you recognize it, you can start working to find the correct dose for your team.
