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Nick Saayman's avatar

Its so easy to get caught up and attempt to be a hero leader acting alone in our leadership capacity to get everthing done or to expect that of other leaders. This article has made me think about how leadership is itself a team sport and, ways we can solve these challenges by working together as a team. Helps to avoid the default thinking that we need do it on our own for whatever reason. Thanks Mike!

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Mark Stone's avatar

Great topic, well articulated. A couple of observations from personal experience:

* Intel - "2 in a box" model: At the senior director level, every department gets a technical leader paired with a business leader. This is a little different from what you're talking about, but does create a division of labor that frees up leadership time.

* Microsoft - business manager model: At the general manager level, every general manager gets a business manager. My sense from working closely with several business managers there was that they filled much of the NCO role you're referencing in the military. Microsoft follows -- or followed, this was more than a decade ago -- a lot of military organizational structure. Some of that was healthy, some of it was "cargo cult" mimicry that's not healthy.

But the challenge for leaders, as you note, is very real.

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