Great article. I think we find time and time again that the best leaders are really “cheerleaders”. It turns out that inspiring people, personally living the values you espouse, and giving your team trust and respect is the key to success.

In my experience, people excel in environments where they are given a high level of trust, autonomy, and clear goals on the timescale of months and years.

Teams on the rack of egotistical middle managers get stretched thin until they break. There aren’t a lot of good examples of “micromanagitis” being cured. So-called leaders taking credit for their team’s work leads to their team not trusting that leadership has their growth in mind. Art Blakey’s real legacy is both the amazing players he mentored and tutored, but also the attitude that if you give people the tools they need, they’ll excel