How to be a Lighthouse Manager

Are you familiar with the idea of helicopter parenting? The stereotype is that Helicopter Parents hover around their child, checking up on them and regularly swooping in to solve their problems. If you’re a parent, perhaps you even recognize this in yourself – especially with your first child, this is a very common trait. But, of course, this is not limited to parenting; Helicopter Managers exist too. Helicopter Managers tend to micromanage, and be over-involved in their team’s work, wanting to keep control, and often intervening in problems before their team members have a chance to solve them themselves. This undermines team members’ autonomy, creates stress and anxiety, reduces innovation, and can lead to burnout and dissatisfaction.

Recently we also posted about another flying analogy for management – the Seagull Manager (popularized by Ken Blanchard). The Seagull Manager only interacts with their team sporadically, swooping in to create a mess with criticism or poorly thought-out ideas (“pooping all over everything”), then flying off, leaving team members to clean up the resulting confusion and stress.

I would hazard a guess that if you’re reading this you don’t want to be either a Helicopter Manager or a Seagull Manager. I’d also hazard a guess that most Helicopter Managers and Seagull Managers don’t see themselves as Helicopter Managers and Seagull Managers, though. So where does that leave us?

Recognizing your own management style can be hard to do – it’s a blind spot for many of us. Intentionally creating a culture of ongoing and authentic feedback can make an enormous difference in uncovering what works and what doesn’t work about your management style. Alongside this, though, you can also choose to be intentional about the management style you practice.

One management style that offers some helpful strategies for equipping and empowering your team – and one that somehow seems fitting with the Helicopter and Seagull counterparts – is the Lighthouse Manager.

A quick caveat: if you search “lighthouse manager” or “lighthouse leadership” online, you’ll encounter several different frameworks using those titles – it’s an understandably appealing name that many have gravitated toward (although, it should be noted, if you’re a boat at sea, gravitating toward a lighthouse would not be a good idea). Steve Pemberton, the Chief People Officer for Workhuman, former Global Chief Diversity Officer at Walgreens, and author of The Lighthouse Effect: How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact on the World, even coined the term “Human Lighthouses,” to mean mentors, teachers, friends, and colleagues who offer selfless guidance and support, like a steady beacon in the dark.

Here, though, we’ll go back to the parenting comparison. Inspired by Lighthouse Parenting: Raising Your Child with Loving Guidance for a Lifelong Bond by Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, Professor of Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, let’s take a look at how the Lighthouse Manager framework might be helpful this week in the workplace.

This Week’s Tips:

Try the Lighthouse Manager approach with your team or anyone who reports to you, whether directly or indirectly:

1. Shine a light, while making less noise: Ask questions to help your team member uncover issues they might not see. Even if you see them yourself, avoid adding drama, and instead help your team member to uncover the issues for themselves, even if it takes longer. If they see the issues and articulate them for themselves, they’ll be more empowered to address it, and more accomplished when the situation is handled.
2. Be steady and stable: Be reliable. Keep your word. Keep your meetings. Lighthouses are battered by waves (as in the image above – La Jument by Jean Guichard, which became one of the ten best-selling images of all time after it was taken in December 1989), but they have a secure foundation; they stay in place and they stay strong. Wherever possible, don’t allow ‘emergencies’ to interfere with your scheduled time with team members.
3. Guide, rather than control: A lighthouse shines its light, but it’s never going to jump out of its foundation to prevent a ship from hitting rocks. Allowing your team members the autonomy to make mistakes (within safe parameters, of course) allows them to grow and become more experienced and resourceful over time. You don’t need to have all the answers yourself. Be the “guide on the side, not the sage on the stage” – or even better, the “coach in the middle” (another idea we’ll return to another time).
4. Offer clear communication: A lighthouse’s light reaches far and bright, allowing ships to know where rocks are. Clear, trustworthy communication builds relationships over time. You’re not going for the lifelong bonds of Lighthouse Parenting, but as a Lighthouse Manager, stronger relationships will build team effectiveness and increase retention and innovation.

Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you.

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