People Centric Leadership
The work happens through people, or it doesn't happen.
I got let go. What that bought me, unexpectedly, was time. Enough to stop and ask whether the way I lead is something I actually believe, or just something I'd absorbed along the way and never examined.
This site is the answer I came to.
Part of it is conviction. I've watched leadership done the other way: people treated as interchangeable resources, leaders who couldn't flex an inch for someone's life on teams where people bend constantly for the company. I've seen what it does over time. That's what convinced me this isn't just the style I prefer.
Part of it is a contract. What people can expect from me is written down here, including the ways I'm most likely to fail them. A philosophy that only exists in my head is one I can quietly drift away from without noticing. On the page, the gap between what I say and what I do is visible: to me, and to anyone who works with me.
This is the leader I'm aiming at, written down so I can be held to it.
The 3 A's
Three commitments the teams I build operate under. They are inseparable; each one only works in the presence of the other two.
Autonomy
People decide how the work gets done. I set the what and the why, then get out of the way on the how.
Authority
People act in their domain without asking permission first. Authority re-confirmed every time isn't authority.
Accountability
People own the outcome: credit and consequence alike. Accountability without blame, but accountability all the same.
Pull one out and the other two curdle into something else: control without trust, or good intentions with no way to act on them.
Where are you right now?
The rest of this is the working material behind how I want to lead: the listening, the coaching, the connecting-work-to-why. If you're in the seat too, it's yours. Start from wherever you actually are.
How to use this
Everything here is a working document. Take what's useful, edit ruthlessly, rewrite anything that doesn't sound like you. Then come back and tell me where I'm wrong.