Sometimes it's tough being a leader. There's always this expectation that leaders know it all, or are supposed to know it all, or are supposed to be able to do it all.

The truth is that sometimes a leader doesn't know how to do most of what they happen to be leading. Not that it always makes them stronger when they don't know all that their employees do, but it's not always the most important thing.

I'm still remembering watching 60 Minutes years ago when a GM plant did a big experiment. They brought in a plant manager that had no experience in manufacturing anything; she was a clinical psychologist. The belief was that this particular plant had morale problems that were destroying the working environment, and there wasn't anyone already on the payroll who had the people skills management felt was needed. Oddly enough, the experiment worked, and this plant jumped up to become the top producing plant in the nation for GM. Unfortunately, I never learned how long it lasted, and whatever happened to that lady.

In healthcare, often the chief financial officer, sometimes known as the vice president of finance, doesn't really know all the jobs of the people who report to the position. There isn't a single CFO who knows: both procedure and diagnosis coding, or is certified to do either; how to register patients, send out bills, and provide collection procedures; how to capture charges in every ancillary department; what every single supply in a hospital is used for; how to write programs for the computer system, or maintain the mainframe, or even work with the process of converting to a new hospital computer system; etc, etc, etc. And yet, most of these departments, and others, report to the CFO. It can't be easy, but that's what the job duties entail.

So, if a leader doesn't have to know what everyone does, what does a leader have to know? Two things; a leader has to know how to work with others, and a leader has to know how to lead. I was thinking about that as I watched a portion of Celebrity Apprentice. It started out with the men versus the women, and the women ended up winning the first contest, which was to make a good cupcake, then sell those cupcakes for the most money, however the teams decided to charge for them. The men made mistake after mistake: they made a cupcake that no one wanted to eat; they didn't have everyone on the same page when it came to marketing themselves; they didn't even have everyone working. In the boardroom, some of the men blamed the task leader, Herschel Walker, for being a bad leader, not delegating well, not learning what every person's strength was, and mot making sure everyone was doing what they should have been doing. Walker believed that everyone was a grown man, and should have known what their roles were without him having to tell them.

In the long run, that's the problem with most people who are unused to being leaders, no matter the field. They assume that others will know, by some odd sort of osmosis, what their duties are, what they're supposed to do for the internal common good. The problem is that those leaders, faux leaders, don't know how to work with others, and don't know how to lead. Things never go well when everyone isn't on the same page, and if everyone doesn't know the job, then it becomes even more important for good leaders to know the people they're working with, and how to delegate based off the information. Without it, there's no reason to have a leader at all.

Something to remember as you decide whether you wish to be a leader of people or a follower of others.