Leaders: Empower your followers to replace you

On Tuesday night, Steve Kerr let his players run the huddles during the Warriors 129–83 victory over the Phoenix Suns.

This was controversial. It seemed disrespectful towards the Suns.

The Suns are one of the least winning teams this season. They haven’t been to the playoffs in years and it’s been a decade since they were relevant. Early on in the season, their star point guard, Eric Bledsoe, simply tweeted: “I Dont wanna be here.” (sic)

The Warriors, on the other hand, are one of the best teams in NBA history.

So it seemed perhaps Kerr was so confident in his team’s victory, he didn’t feel he had to even take part in the coaching of the game.

But that’s not what he was doing.

He was being a leader.

He was empowering his players (particularly power forward Draymond Green) to find new ways to develop. To devolve some management tasks to them, which frees him up to work on higher order problems.

The Warriors are a winning team. Kerr inherited a lot of that, but he built a lot more. He could use his winning position to solidify his authority, try to negotiate a longer contract for more money, or solidify his unquestioned authority as head coach. Instead, he chooses to empower his followers to replace him. And it works.

Great leaders empower their followers to replace them.

There’s a parable for leaders in China that tracks to, “Teachers, never teach your student how to replace you.”

The story is about an old cat teacher and his tiger student. The cat teaches the tiger how to climb trees. One day, when the tiger tries to eat the cat, the cat climbs a tree so tall the tiger can’t get up it. The cat never taught the tiger how to climb that high.

The morale: if you teach your student to replace you, you’ll become irrelevant. You may as well be dead.

I could not disagree with the morale of this story more.

Have you ever heard the saying, “Don’t be irreplaceable — if you’re irreplaceable, you can’t be promoted”?

This is the right attitude to take as a leader.

A leader empowers her followers to replace her.

He finds the strengths in others that he doesn’t have and brings it out, confidently showing his follower a power inside they never knew.

But if your follower learns how to do what you do, what will you do?

There’s the rub. A great leader is also willing to open herself up to new challenges, new skills, new ways to operate. To be more efficient. To be more effective. To evolve.

This is how you make your company better. More efficient. More effective.

Evolve.

Embrace change.

Empower your followers to replace you.