Mistake number one in many German mid-sized companies — and often the main reason why employees become disillusioned and mentally check out:
“It makes no sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Steve Jobs once said.
The essence of this is simple: an entrepreneur’s job is not to be the smartest person in the room. It’s to create an environment where the company can benefit from the intelligence, experience, and judgement of its people.
The concept of the knowledge worker
As far back as 1959, the management thinker Peter Drucker coined the term “knowledge worker”. He used it to describe people who earn their living through what they know — rather than relying on physical labour.
Planning, organising, analysing, testing, programming, researching, marketing, or distributing content are all typical activities of knowledge workers. Before his death in 2005, Drucker predicted that one of the most important tasks for 21st-century entrepreneurs would be to support and develop knowledge workers.
That takes strong leadership, yes — but as Jobs also made clear, the boss doesn’t have to be the smartest person in the company. What matters far more is showing genuine appreciation for the people you lead. Jobs himself lived by that principle.
Three important rules for leading people
With this basic mindset, the key principles of strong leadership can be summed up in three points:
- One rule is that employees should be involved in decision-making because of their expertise — and in some areas they should be trusted to make decisions independently.
- To build the strongest possible team, collaboration and a genuine sense of “we” should be actively encouraged.
- Finally, leaders are well advised to listen more than they speak. When each person’s work is respected, morale rises — and that ultimately strengthens the success of the whole company.
This article was first published by Business Insider in November 2019. It has now been reviewed and updated.
