“Those who want to achieve great things must think deeply
about the details.”Paul Valéry, writer, poet, and French philosopher
T-shaped leadership is a leadership model that combines strategic vision, collaborative leadership across different areas (represented by the horizontal bar of the T), along with the capacity to delve into specific details of crucial subjects for business success, all while recognizing individual expertise (depicted by the vertical bar of the T).
T-shaped leadership enables organizations to capitalize on expertise, knowledge, and ideas to create value and break down silos. The more T-shaped its management system is, the more a company is capable of:
- Enhancing operational excellence,
- Maintaining strategic focus on the implementation of its vision,
- Staying on course,
- And paradoxically, increasing empowerment and expertise appreciation.
This type of management is highly complementary to the traditional hierarchical mode and helps leaders stay connected to the field while maintaining the strategic overview necessary for their mission. This management vision was popularized by Tim Brown, the founder of IDEO, to enhance creativity and the resolution of complex problems.
Being an expert and collaborative leader
Often in the business environment, attempting to resolve a problem among various expert departments turns into negotiation, or even battle, to determine which perspective will prevail. This leads to ‘grey’ compromises where the best that can be achieved is finding the smallest common denominator among all viewpoints, which then becomes the solution. Unfortunately, this rarely leads to significant accomplishments!
Similarly, a leader must undoubtedly maintain a high-level vision but must also be willing to dig deep, descend within the hierarchy, and ‘crack’ certain subjects. This way, they can stay connected with the field, meet their teams, verify the alignment of their managerial line, or reinforce their legitimacy. In short, they should not be ‘disconnected’, a criticism they sometimes face.
Another advantage of integrating a T-shaped model into the managerial organization is that it promotes the creation of positive customer experiences, a well-known subject in the luxury industry and now in retail. On the leadership side, one must be especially careful about delegation and effectively empowering non-strategic matters to capable team members. It’s also essential to find a positive way to delve into details without demotivating the relevant N-1 individuals.
- Integrating T-shaped Leadership with facilitation
The hallmark of a T-shaped leader is to view the problem from various angles and be capable of putting themselves in the shoes of different stakeholders to better understand how they perceive it.
The actions of a T-shaped leader:
- Identify the 2 or 3 strategic subjects to voluntarily delve into details on.
- Gather and prioritize requests from superiors.
- Collaborate with other teams.
- Structure and articulate their actions in the execution process.
- Decide whether or not to communicate their roadmap with their teams.
- Connect people with those who hold the information.
An Accenture study revealed that a manager spends an average of 2 hours per day searching for information, and half of the information they find is of no use to them. The T-shaped leader is the one who facilitates connecting the right people with the right information. This is the role known as the ‘facilitator’.
- Retaining expertise and recruiting T-leaders
Despite the so-called ‘general’ qualification of academic curricula, our education system still predominantly produces experts who are not open to fields of study beyond their own. The responsibility then shifts to the business world, becoming a place of learning for new expertise. In order to identify and promote future T-shaped managers, companies must pinpoint individuals who stand out due to their mindset, a natural curiosity for domains other than their expertise. It’s worth noting that this curiosity is a key element in consistently integrating new expertise into one’s life. Thus, be aware that if a candidate discusses group projects or the roles others played in their successes during a job interview, there’s a strong likelihood they will collaborate spontaneously with other teams and potentially become a future T-shaped manager.
The 180° or 360° evaluations we explored in a previous article are also highly useful for assessing the collaboration capabilities of one’s teams.
- Developing Expertise and Collaborative Leadership
Having a good understanding of one’s strengths, weaknesses, and what can be easily delegated is the key to T-shaped leadership. The leader can then readily identify situations where they can turn to another expert and free up time by delegating.
Deciding to acquire a new expertise is crucial and allows for a fresh perspective on an old subject.
For instance, one of my clients, a leader in the retail industry and a non-expert, decided when taking up their role to analyze the topic of cold chain management within their business unit. Their fresh perspective enabled a new approach to the subject, challenging some of the old beliefs of their teams (we’ve always done it this way…) and putting their teams, who were experts in the subject, under constructive pressure.
In conclusion, we are witnessing the emergence of various forms of leadership today. The mission of the T-shaped leader is to explore within themselves to find the most suitable form of leadership that aligns with who they are, the needs of their teams, and the type of business they lead.
To achieve this, identifying areas to enhance their own expertise in strategic subjects and pinpointing where they perceive their teams to be somewhat weak will enable them to reinvigorate them. They will also ensure they select subjects based on their business unit’s priorities. The goal is both to promote collaboration and cross-fertilization among their teams while embracing their role as a facilitator, in addition to their role as a manager or leader!
#coaching #leadership #expertise #collaboration