Yesterday, I wrote about building roads and the infrastructure required to allow people to drive independently (dot #4365). But unless there is an agreed-upon destination, at some point people will hit a dead end, go rogue, detour, or turn in a different direction than the leader would have liked.
People need a map.
In most units, only one person is responsible for creating that map. Everyone else’s responsibility is to drive.
If you are in the role to whom destination-defining obligations fall, spend your time creating that direction. It may be tempting to spend time on operational duties or to revert to the daily tasks that earned you a promotion, but if you are now a map-maker nothing is more important than that duty. Don’t leave your team to drive aimlessly.
