Last week, in one of my group coaching circles, a conversation emerged focused on what it really means to be direct with our teams.
How do we find that fine balance between providing clarity, but also avoid being a micromanager?
You may have come across the well-meaning leader who prides themselves on being clear, but whose team has quietly stopped bringing ideas forward.
Or perhaps you can recognize that sometimes you might be a little too detail-oriented in your instructions.
I remember working for someone like this early in my career. They likely thought they were giving me clear direction, but being on the receiving end, I felt like I was getting highly detailed instructions that left no room for me to take ownership of my work.
Every how was dictated, and ultimately that stifled my motivation and engagement.
While it can sound like being direct requires you to be directive, there is actually a huge difference between the two concepts. Knowing the difference can help you build a more engaged, empowered, and initiative-led team.
What vs. How - the difference between being direct and directive
Being direct is clearly communicating the what and why.
Being directive is diving into the how.
Being direct is about providing clarity. It is focused on the outcome, or what you’re trying to achieve, and why. It is destination-focused and highlights what good looks like. This leaves someone with a clear understanding of what constitutes success and what constraints they might need to consider.
Being directive is about prescribing the route to get there. It falls into defining the how.
As leaders, it is easy to fall into a trap and get confused between these two. We may think we’re being helpful and specific, but it is easy to switch into “solving mode” and end up being the one who is directing all the actions.
With the best of intentions, we can risk putting too much energy into directing the details, and inadvertently not leave enough space for our best employees to really shine.
Highly directive behavior can show up like:
Telling people exactly who to contact, what questions to ask, and what order to take routine steps in.
Requiring approval for all decisions or action steps.
Getting into the habit of rewriting work oneself, instead of explaining the needs and letting the owner revise the piece.
Giving people solutions before asking for their ideas or recommendations.
How being overly directive backfires
The tragedy is that being an overly directive leader actually stifles initiative.
When people know their role is to simply execute someone else's instructions all day, they stop exercising their own judgment.
Team members stop thinking for themselves, working through problems, and coming up with solutions, and instead, they can fall into the routine of waiting for the next instructions to move on.
If judgment is a muscle, then a highly directive leadership style atrophies it.
Ultimately, this creates a loop of dependency.
In psychology, there is a concept called learned helplessness. Seligman & Maier originally described it in 1967. They noticed that dogs, when administered intermittent shocks, ultimately gave up and learned to be helpless. The poor pups realized they had no control over their situation, so they stopped trying to influence the events. They were conditioned to be helpless.
Teams that have highly directive leaders are also at risk of being conditioned. They end up thinking (albeit likely unconsciously): why bother thinking ahead and coming up with a solution when what we’re supposed to be doing will be dictated anyway?
The cruel irony is that the leader then reads that as passivity, and as evidence that the team has no initiative or judgment, and tends to become even more directive. The loop feeds upon itself.
The ultimate and unintended effect: the leader becomes a bottleneck to the process where the team begins filtering every small decision or action to their leader for approval before they get moving. This further proves the leaders impression, leading to a self-fulfilling cycle.
Direct the outcome but delegate the thinking
The way out… being direct ensures you have alignment and a shared understanding of what you’re trying to achieve, but it doesn’t create the dependence.
It’s the difference between ensuring your team knows exactly what you expect, while letting them find the path they want to take to get there.
Great leaders who create empowered teams direct the outcome, but delegate the thinking steps.
So as long as they get to the ultimate goal, they can go away and make a hundred little decisions without your input. They can use their own judgment to create the path that makes sense to them to achieve the goal.
Clarity on the outcome, paired with freedom in the method, builds a sense of agency and ownership in your team.
The caveat: this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever take a more directive style. There are absolutely moments that may call for more direction. For example, the new hire who hasn’t yet mastered the basics enough to really bring that higher level of judgment to the table, or in a moment of crisis when there needs to be a quick and aligned response and have all contributors singing from the same hymn sheet. Both of these situations might require a more directive approach in the moment. At times, momentarily stepping into a more directive style might be the responsible thing to do; the aim is simply not to make this your permanent or default leadership style.
How to tell if you’re leaning Direct or Directive?
Being able to distinguish between being direct or directive is a key part of building the self-awareness needed to develop an empowering leadership style.
A few other things to ask yourself if you’re wanting to build more initiative, ownership, and agency in your team:
Are my instructions describing an outcome or a route?
When someone brings me a problem, do I first ask for their ideas or solutions? Or am I quickly jumping in with a fix or answer?
Is my team showing initiative and able to move without me?
The biggest shift you can make is encouraging your team to lead with ideas and solutions, and to own the path they take to reach any outcome you need.
The higher we climb in leadership roles, the more important it is that our teams demonstrate real judgment, and can work without us. We simply cannot stay in the weeds if we’re being called to lead the wider vision for our teams and organizations.
The goal of creating a great team is not having a bunch of people who can execute perfectly on our explicit instructions. It is that they can make sound decisions, solve meaningful problems, and deliver strong results without us being the ones who outline every move.
So yes, be direct enough that no one is left guessing where you need to get to. Make sure the outcome is clear, and people know what they need to achieve.
But also be trusting enough that people can choose their preferred route to how they actually get there.
Hi, I’m Kate Snowise - an executive coach, leadership advisor, and speaker. I’m a trained I/O psychologist, bringing together business and psychology in this Substack, Leadership Lately! I write practical thoughts for leaders who want to lead better on a real-life Tuesday, not a theoretical one. I live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, with my husband, two boys, and a pack of pups I adore. You can find out more about me and my work at katesnowise.com.