3 Examples of Leadership Debt
Leadership Debt, similar to Technical Debt, is taking shortcuts and using temporary fixes to solve the problem now, but you will likely have to come back and improve it later.
Technical Debt is about code, architecture and other technical decisions, but Leadership Debt is about people, relationships, teams, the organization, culture etc.
In all the examples below, The Expedient Thing To Do is taking on Leadership Debt: you fix the immediate problem, but you don’t fix the root cause, and the problems will accumulate in time.
The Solid Thing To Do is harder now, but it prevents more problems in the future.
Example: Difficult Team Member
Johnny Boi from your team is a difficult character and the rest of the team finds it hard to work with him.
The Solid Thing To Do: understand the situation and through discussion, coaching, whatever is required, work with Johnny and the team as needed to make it possible for them to work together well.
The Expedient Thing To do: intervene personally to “handle” Johnny when things get out of hand, fix the immediate issue, get through another day.
Example: You hire someone
You need a new team member fast.
The Solid Thing To Do: Take the time and put in the effort to hire a great fit, resist the pressure to just “fill in the position”.
The Expedient Thing To do: Hire first person who’s barely good enough.
Example: Project not on track
You don’t trust the current plan, you think it will be delayed.
The Solid Thing To Do: Address the issue proactively and have the difficult conversations with the client early, and make the necessary adjustments.
The Expedient Thing To do: Avoid addressing the issue, hope for the best, survive another day, explain it how you can when it fails.
How much Leadership Debt is good?
The answer is not zero, and also there’s no one answer, because it is contextual.
An internet startup for which speed is crucial should take a lot of debt just to be able to move fast, because without speed, nothing else matters.
An airplane maker on the other hand should have a very different approach.
There’s also different types of Leadership Debt. Maybe you want to take on very little debt when it comes to the team, so you’re very careful with hiring and leading people, but you’re less concerned with your marketing. The important thing is that you are aware that your marketing is a temporary solution and will need an upgrade at some point.
So, the question is not how much Leadership Debt is good, but How much Leadership Debt is good for you?
That having been said, there’s a point beyond which too much Leadership Debt simply becomes unmanageable because everything starts failing at the same time.
Self Assessment Tool
The worst thing is not even being aware, taking on Leadership Debt without even realizing.
For this purpose I’ve developed this simple tool (excel file for now), to help you self assess your Leadership Debt across 5 dimensions.