An article published in the March/April 2018 edition of Chief Executive magazine advised that organization’s treat their “rockstars” differently than they treat other employees, labeled B and C players. The advice is centered on five actions.
- Provide the rockstars with significantly increasing compensation.
- Provide the rockstars with interesting work, problems to solve, and challenges.
- Provide the rockstars with greater responsibility, broader experiences, and intense mentoring.
- Provide the rockstars with candid feedback regarding their performance and career development.
- Introduce the rockstars to your network of contacts that can be helpful in their careers.
This advice is contrary to leading in a lean enterprise. The advice assumes people will perform as they do regardless of leadership, and therefore distinctions between rockstars and others is a consequence outside the influence of leadership. Any leader that believes such isn’t worthy of the role. Leaders understand the following.
- Higher enterprise productivity and earnings result from the coordinated efforts of groups of people and not solo performances.
- It is the responsibility of leaders and managers to develop all employees through interesting work, problems to solve, and challenges.
- A high performing enterprise creates opportunities for greater responsibility by designing the work to provide broader experiences and intense mentoring.
- If a leader cannot provide candid feedback to their team they cannot lead.
- The ability to share your network of contacts to help others you lead is central to service to your enterprise.
It’s time to give up the myth of the rockstar. Daniel Kahneman asserts in Thinking, Fast and Slow the influence of high-quality enterprise leaders is barely greater than chance. I suspect that is because that many leaders, while smart, are relying on their rockstars. My other suspicion is that those leaders focused on developing all their employees are enjoying much higher levels of influence and success.
