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Came across this from Gary Hamel business thought leader. An excellent reflection on what engaging leaders in organisations need to do to help drive business effectiveness through motivated employees.

First, if you’re a formally appointed leader, and you want to turn sheep into shepherds, you have to step out of your leadership role and say to people, “I don’t have a plan, what’s yours?” This is humbling. But only by doing this will you release the latent talents within your organization.

Second, you have to let people find the work that best suits them – this is the key to building a community of passion. If you force people into pre-determined slots, you’ll get slot-shaped contributions; you won’t get bold and innovative contributions. It’s pretty simple, really. If you want the unexpected, you have to give people the freedom to do the unexpected.

Now, can you run an airline this way, or a semiconductor fab line? I don’t know, but I bet you can run parts of it like this. One thing I’m sure about: if you want to fully take advantage of the extraordinary talents that exist in your organization, you’ll need to ask yourself each day, “What can I do to make this place feel less like a hierarchy and more like a community?”