Business growth relies on quality of staff owners assign key roles

 

Business owners must ensure that they have the right people to implement their decisions or else they may end up with ineffective praise singers and gatekeepers. FOTOSEARCH 

By Peter Mutua

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Leadership operates in teams chosen for excellence in performance rather than loyalty and being on the boss’s wavelength which are insufficient qualifications.
-John Gardner

Sometime in July 1440 BC only a few weeks after leading more than a million people through what was a dramatic, action packed exodus from Egypt, Moses received a visit from Jethro, his father-in-law. After relating all that had been done in the course of releasing the nation from captivity, Moses went back to his ecclesiastical duty of “leading” the people.

From morning till night, Moses sat determining disputes and issuing directives regarding a variety of issues ranging from quarrelling spouses to matters of national policy to conveyance of divine instructions.

Needless to say, by the end of every day Moses was exhausted while the individuals whose problems he had not been able to solve were frustrated. Till then, all power was concentrated in the hands of Moses, his brother Aaron and their sister Miriam.

After observing scenario, Jethro offered counsel — that Moses appoints “capable, God-fearing individuals of integrity who hate dishonest gain” with whom he could share the load of leadership. While Moses remained the arbiter of last resort, all minor matters were quickly and efficiently dispensed with by these trusted individuals.

Being eager for solutions, Moses immediately put Jethro’s advice into practice.

Not surprisingly, there were found within the multitude men who fitted these exact specifications, the vast majority of who were completely unrelated to Moses. Following this handover, he became a more effective leader and the people were content and satisfied.

Not all leaders take so easily to delegation. For some strange reason membership of the library in Kenya’s largest and oldest public university must be sought from and personally approved by the vice chancellor.

Given that this public institution has a student population of 84,000, more than 5,300 staff and assets worth more than Sh102 billion ($1.12 billion) it is tragic that the leader’s time is spent on such relatively mundane affairs.

Many leaders of family business resist the need to delegate authority to subordinates for fear that the people assigned to the tasks will prove untrustworthy, that responsibilities handed down will not be executed as well as possible or because the leader is afraid of being overshadowed or outperformed by their appointees.

Other leaders who relinquish some of their responsibilities do so only reluctantly to those who are of unquestionable loyalty, close blood relations or sycophants who speak sweet words into the leader’s ear.

Such leaders make the mistaken assumption that loyalty is superior to competence, forgetting that the ability to perform is more important than congruence of thought.

How then can business leaders tell those who will be dependable from all the hangers on who form part of the entourage? How can they discern those who can be entrusted with responsibility from those who can’t?

Every family business rises and falls on the quality of the staff it engages, particularly those who interact directly with the leaders and who are responsible for translating vision and strategic objectives into day-to-day activities.

To fall prey to the temptation to assign these important ranks to chorus singers and other types of sycophants rather than the true servants who have the interests of the leader at heart is to plunge the venture into chaos and confusion.