• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Tip of the Spear Ventures

A Family Office that behaves like Venture Capital | Private Equity | Business Consulting

  • Advisory Services
    • BRANDING & GTM
    • BUSINESS GROWTH
      • PE & VC Portfolio Growth
    • VENTURE FUNDING
    • M&A
  • FO Direct Investments
  • The Point Blog
  • Contact Us
    • Speaking
    • Speaking Resources
  • FREE eBOOK

hands-on leader

The Leadership Challenge: Hands-On Leadership – 4 Tips!

January 29, 2016 By Tip of the Spear

The Point: You have a choice as a leader… To micro or macro manage (i.e., lead) your stakeholders. But here’s the leadership challenge: In order to achieve “Super Boss” status, what’s the proper way then? In this post we’ll take a look at how being a hands-on leader is by far and away the best approach to leading along with four tips for success… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Hands-On Leadership – 4 Tips!

Hello… I’m a Disengaged Leader!

It happened again (as it had happened like a broken record every time there was a grumbling from a stakeholder)… In managing his department, Tim was provided the latitude to counsel/coach his team under the guise of “Do what you think is best” direction from his superior. However, whenever Tim did in the moment what he thought was his “best” he inevitably received the call from his disengaged leader. This call typically consisted of this disengaged leader asking the question “What did you do?” and worse yet “What did you say?”

While these questions aren’t necessarily in and of themselves bad, they would put Tim in a defensive posture. Having to explain what was done and said left him backtracking on his position. His leader without receiving all the facts typically would overthrow Tim’s authority, and in so doing cajole the stakeholders into recognizing that while the organization’s org chart had him in a leadership role, instead relegated him to an inferior status.

Being a Hands-On Leader

If Tim’s story sounds familiar to you, it should bother you. While leadership is a role best served by allowing team members to perform at their best levels, it’s more than frustrating to have episodes of the disengaged leader undercutting authority, decreasing motivation, and prompting internal thoughts/conversations regarding whether or not you as a leader are truly in the right organization.

The role of a leader is to lead from a distance, but stay in tune with activities so as to insure organizational direction is achieved. Situations often dictate that when boundaries are crossed, or direction is not as intended, that leaders engage in realignment efforts. Nothing shows greater consistency than a leader engaging in what might be seen as the mundane/not worthy day-to-day activities with a “sleeves rolled up” support system. So what should you do to be considered as a hands-on leader?

4 Tips of a Hands-On Leader

The following four (4) tips should be subscribed to in order to increase your effectiveness as a hands-on leader:

Tip #1: Set High Expectations

Become bullish on what your team can accomplish. If you’ve never pushed your team and the leaders within to achieve extraordinary high performance, the shame/blame lies squarely on your shoulders. The thought “perfect is good enough” isn’t just a mindset, it should become your mantra!

Tip #2: Be a Master

You employee smart, ambitious, and adaptable team members, right? If so, trust them to execute. If not, look to recruit/hire those that are no less than four times (4x) as smart as you are. Keep in mind that failure is inevitable, and course correction from failures should be the way you do business!

Tip #3: Encourage Step-Change Growth

Learning and growth are paramount to your people. As such, design atypical growth and development plans that allow your team to springboard forward along a steep learning curve which becomes increasingly steep as successful projects are undertaken/accomplished.

Tip #4: Stay Connected

As a leader you can count on talented people departing from you/your organization. Rip a page from the successful consultant organization model by staying connected with your former associates. Think of it as a talent “Alumni Network” that you can tap into at any given moment and you’ll be afforded the gift of future benefits.

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve taken a look at the hands-on leader as well as four tips to execute for success. Avoid becoming the disengaged leader that bares little respect as you grow yourself, your team, and your organization!

 

Sam Palazzolo

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: hands-on leader, leadership, sam palazzolo, the leadership challenge

Primary Sidebar

Related Content

  • 2025 M&A Blueprint: Real Strategy for a Shifting Market
  • Palazzolo’s AI Hierarchy of Needs: A Strategic Framework for Scaling AI with Purpose
  • Reinvention or Irrelevance: What 72% of CEOs Know—and the Rest Should Worry About
  • COVID-19 Five Years Later: Riding the Black Swan of Change
  • The Blueprint for Sales Growth
  • The AI Age: Why Your Leadership Might Suffer
  • Why Business Scaling Fails: An Interview with Sam Palazzolo

Search Form

Footer

Ready to Scale?

Download Sam Palazzolo’s ’50 Scaling Strategies’ eBook ($50 value) for free here…
DOWNLOAD NOW

Copyright © 2012–2025 · Tip of the Spear Ventures LLC · Members Only · Terms & Conditions · Privacy Policy · Log in