Leaders, here’s how you can help an autonomous team

Photo by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash

The team knows best.

Let the team figure it out.

Leave the team alone and let them work.

Enable the team to be autonomous and innovate.

If these team autonomy platitudes create unease in you as a leader and you feel uncertain about how you should lead under these conditions, here are few ways you can engage and support your teams.

Trust

Provide the strategic objective and problem space, then give your team your trust. If you are used to commanding the efforts of your team, this will be the hardest space to step into. You will be tempted to spy on them and insert your opinion. Resist this urge. Grant them your trust, let them know you trust them to be “good citizens” of the strategic objective and then get out of the way.

Check-In

Granting trust doesn’t mean ignoring the team. Let them know what you need to do your job, then check-in with them. Let them know when you will be checking in and what they can expect. Check-ins are not for status. Check-ins are for course correction and strategic tune-ups.

Reflect

As a part of your check-in, probe for what the team is learning. How are they improving as a team? What are…