Leadership Goes Beyond Making Decisions and Giving Directions

Editor's note: Posts published on From the Workplace are written by outside contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of SHRM.

Few definitions of leadership have stood the test of time like President Dwight D. Eisenhower's: "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

Eisenhower understood something many people still get wrong today. Leadership is not about authority.; it is about influence. Anyone with a title can give directions. Leaders create commitment.

For most of my career, I viewed leadership primarily through the lens of decision-making. Good leaders made good decisions. Poor leaders made poor decisions. Over time, I realized that perspective was incomplete.

Development Solution: Purposeful & Performance Leadership

What Effective Leadership Looks Like

The quality of a leader is not measured solely by the decisions they make. It is also measured by the environment they create and the people they develop.

Traditionally, organizations operated under a top-down model. Leaders made decisions, employees executed those decisions, and success was measured by productivity and compliance. While that structure created order, it often overlooked a simple reality: Employees frequently possess information that leadership does not.

Frontline employees see operational challenges before executives do. They identify inefficiencies before they appear on reports. They often understand the practical impact of decisions long before leadership sees the results. Good leaders recognize this. Great leaders create an environment where employees feel comfortable sharing what they know.

Early in my career, I believed leadership was largely about directing people. Today, I believe it is equally about listening to them. Some of the best decisions organizations make are not the result of a leader having all the answers. They are the result of leaders creating an environment where people feel comfortable sharing information, raising concerns, and offering solutions.

This approach requires trust and humility. It requires leaders who are confident enough to accept that good ideas can come from anywhere in the organization.

Balancing Leadership and Management

This is where leadership and management begin to separate. Management focuses on maintaining systems, processes, and structure. Leadership focuses on developing people and improving performance. Organizations need both. Good management creates stability. Good leadership creates growth.

A workplace can be efficiently managed and still struggle if employees do not feel heard, valued, or trusted. The most effective leaders understand that leadership is not a one-way relationship. Employees influence leaders just as much as leaders influence employees. When employees share feedback, challenge assumptions, and provide frontline insight, leadership improves. Decisions improve. Outcomes improve.

The strongest leaders do not view employee input as a challenge to their authority. They view it as an asset. The era of the iron-fisted leader is largely behind us. While authority can produce compliance, it rarely produces commitment. People may do what they are told when they have to; they contribute at their highest level when they want to.

Key Questions for Leaders

A leader's success should not be measured by the size of their team, the title on their business card, or the amount of authority they possess. It should be measured by what happens to the people around them. Leaders should ask:

• Are employees growing?
• Are they developing new skills?
• Do they feel comfortable sharing ideas?
• Do they take ownership of problems?
• Do they contribute more than the minimum required of them?

If the answer is consistently yes, then their leadership is working.

The best leaders are not defined by how many people follow them. They are defined by how many people they enable to contribute.

Eisenhower was right. Leadership is getting people to want to accomplish what needs to be done, but modern leadership simply asks us to go one step further. Leadership is not only about creating commitment. It is about creating an environment where people are able to contribute more than they thought possible.

In the end, the most important question for any leader may not be: Are people doing what I asked? Instead, it may be: Is my leadership helping people reach their full potential?

When the answer is yes, leadership has accomplished something far more meaningful than compliance. It has created growth, ownership, and an environment where people and organizations can succeed together.

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John Byrd works in human resources at TrustTexas Bank and is passionate about leadership, employee development, and organizational culture.