Entrusted | The Right Call S1E9

Aboard the USS Saratoga, I overheard Petty Officer McAllister on the phone with one of the ship's Damage Control Petty Officers (DCPOs), talking about me. He painted me as an ogre who ruled by fear and made his life miserable. It would be a huge personal favor if this DCPO would just get the maintenance done and get me off his back.

My job was damage control maintenance across a 40-year-old aircraft carrier. I had two petty officers, McAllister and O'Brien, and 70 collaterally assigned DCPOs who didn't work for me. McAllister figured out fast that we couldn't order them. He'd wheedle, coerce, plead, persuade, whatever it took. He was resourceful, relentless and effective.

He hung up, saw me, and gave me a look that said, "Oops. Was I out of line?" I chuckled and said, "I didn't realize I was that difficult to work for." "No, sir, you're not." "Well, that's good to know. Carry on." He dialed the next number.

Why let it run? Because it was working, and it did no damage to me. It didn't hurt my ego. That distinction matters more than it sounds.

The wrong assumption

A lot of leaders think empowerment is something we do to a subordinate. Give authority, cast vision, step back. When it doesn't take, we micromanage or write them off.

There's another possibility we rarely consider: the empowerment was never accepted. To be truly effective, authority has to be given and received as a trust. Otherwise people check with us before every decision. They execute, they don't own. When we remove the trust from entrust, it just becomes direction.

Three conditions for entrusting

1. Set them up to succeed. That's a checklist, not a cliché. Have they accepted the invitation, with the right attitude? Do they know the desired outcome, the vision and not just the task? McAllister knew good damage control keeps 5,000 sailors alive in a crisis, and vision changes motivation. And do they understand the cost? He expected pushback and had already thought about which levers to pull.

2. Train them. Not brief them. We ran bi-weekly training for the DCPOs built around their upcoming maintenance. Over time McAllister and O'Brien took over most of it. So when McAllister called, the DCPOs knew him and knew he was on their side.

3. Delegate sufficient authority. Most leaders stop short here. McAllister represented me, and his word carried my weight, especially when I wasn't in the room.

The ego check

Would I let someone operate in a way I didn't script, using methods I wouldn't have chosen, that cast me as the bad guy? The answer had to be yes. If not, we've just hired someone to execute our methods with our personality at a lower pay grade. The question isn't "Is this how I would do it?" It's "Is it working at all the levels that matter?" If it is, let it run.

The chain

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2:2: "The things you've heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others." Four generations in one verse, and we can't entrust something to someone who won't hold it.

When McAllister took his next job, doing my same job on a minesweeper, he taught his people the same way. It reached people I never met. Absalom is the opposite: every gift, and he never accepted the role of servant. He felt empowered and tried to take what was never offered. A chain built on that collapses.

This week, look at the people we're actually leading, not the ones we wish we had. Are they set up to succeed? Have they accepted it? If not, that's our next move.

A question to sit with

Think of someone you tried to empower, and it didn't take. Before concluding they weren't capable, ask: had they accepted the invitation? Did they know the outcome well enough to own it? Did we give them sufficient authority? And the harder one: when they did it differently than we would have, what did we do?

This is Episode 9 of The Right Call: Wisdom Simply Applied.