Que faites-vous si les membres de votre équipe ont besoin d’autonomie mais que vous souhaitez tout de même diriger efficacement ?

Building trust forms the foundation of empowering autonomy while upholding effective leadership. It begins with understanding each team member's strengths, weaknesses, and career aspirations. This insight enables personalized opportunities aligned with their capabilities and growth objectives. By entrusting responsibilities that challenge without overwhelming, I demonstrate confidence in their abilities. Trust operates on reciprocity; as I show trust in my team, they reciprocate trust in my leadership.

Building trust within a team requires allowing each member to operate autonomously, self-manage, and contribute to decision-making. To paraphrase Steve Jobs: "Why hire smart people and tell them what to do if you're not going to let them do their job?" As leaders, we must remember that the best leaders are not those who know the most, but those who create an environment where each team member can perform to the best of their abilities, utilizing their unique talents and capacities. If someone on the team cannot fulfill these responsibilities and needs constant management to remain active and contributing, then perhaps they may not be the right fit for that role or team.

Key to productive, balanced, and transparent autonomy amongst a team is language and expectation setting. The term "autonomy," for example, hold different connotations per the individual. Identifying what each member of the team thinks autonomous work is and then developing a shared definition of the term is required pre-work for crafting a clear vision. Once the shared definition is established, the lead can work with team members to measure how much autonomy is currently available and in what form, how much more is desired, why and to what end the extended autonomy is desired.

Provide regular, face-to-face feedback to team members to maintain engagement and morale . . . I use to run weekly "stand-up" mattings where the team had a chance to briefly share their top priorities for the week and flag any potential hurdles to their achieving them.

Team autonomy and strong leadership are not at odds. They are actually synonymous. If you as a leader can create a culture that empowers your team and allows them to feel ownership over projects and tasks and produces quality results then that is a testament to the strength of your leadership. Control is NOT leadership. Don't get it confused!

Each team member should, to some extent, have the freedom to make decisions independently and take responsibility for the outcomes. Constantly seeking authorization for every action can foster a mindset of low capability and low confidence. Establish boundaries within which they can act without seeking permission, and by evaluating the results of these decisions, guide them in considering alternative approaches and rectifying questionable decisions. Not all decisions are equally significant, so there's always room for them to exercise autonomy.

The best way to ensure that feedback is well-received by team members as something beneficial rather than criticism is by allowing them to provide feedback on your leadership as well. When feedback is only conveyed in one direction, it can lead to resistance within your team because, as a leader, you also have areas for improvement. If you don't allow or accept feedback graciously, they will likely react in the same manner, leading to friction and an unhealthy work environment.