Jul 28 2026 | By: Charlene Stackle
I've worked with leaders who follow the book. I've worked with leaders who toss the book out the window and run on instinct. Both styles have their strengths. Both have their gaps.
But in both cases, there is a book: without a book, or without a process, there's no way to actually navigate your team.
The real goal? You're trying to make your team autonomous. Not because you don't trust them. Because you can't build something that only runs when you're in the room.
If you haven't seen the RSA Animate video of Daniel Pink's Drive — go watch it after you finish reading this. Ten minutes. It'll change how you think about leading people.
"Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives. Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters. Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves." ~ Daniel Pink | Drive
Autonomy. Mastery. Purpose. That's what actually drives good work. Not more oversight. Not more check-ins.
And you can't hand someone autonomy if everything is stuck in your head. Or if you are the book.Â
Years ago, I managed multiple projects daily at The Home Depot. Every day, someone on my team would come to me with a question about one of them. Small ones. Big ones. Constant.
At first, I just answered. That's what a leader does, right? You're the go-to person. You have the information. So you give it.
Except I started noticing something. The same questions kept coming back. Different people, same gaps. And I was spending more time answering than leading.
So before I gave any answer, I started asking one question: "Did you read the project?"
Not to catch anyone. To find out where the actual gap was.
At first, a lot of people hadn't. So I'd send them back to the project. Â
Then something changed. People started coming to me already knowing the answer was sitting somewhere in the project notes. And eventually, they'd say it before I could even ask: "Before you ask — I read the project."
That's when I knew we were getting somewhere. Because now I could ask a better question: "What's your solution?"
Not "what should I do." What's your solution. Like they already had one.
Usually, they did.
So how do you get here with your own team? Here's where I'd start.
Have them document what they do now. If your business runs online, this is the easy part. Record a video or a voice memo walking through the task, then run the transcript through AI to build an SOP. Or use something like Scribe to capture the screen while they work. You're not asking for a polished manual. You're asking for a starting point.
Start documenting your own processes. What do you expect? What does "done" actually look like? Use the same method above. If it's stuck in your head, it's not a process. It's a bottleneck.
Ask development questions instead of giving answers. "What's your solution?" "Did you look for a way to solve this, or did you check the SOP, the project instructions, the meeting notes?" You're not being difficult. You're teaching them where to look.
Create a database of all your projects. The platform doesn't matter, as long as everyone on the team can get to it. Google Drive, OneDrive, whatever you've already got. Think bigger picture too: if you ever want to sell your business, or franchise it, this is the asset you're building. You're creating your book of business. Not just the financial book — the whole thing.
When your team doesn't follow instructions, lead. Documentation only gets you so far. At some point, this becomes a leadership issue, not a systems issue. There are a lot of good resources on this — Manager Tools (the podcast is a great place to start) and Servant Leadership are two of my favorites. I share more of my own leadership thinking in this blog.
I still think about the day my team started saying "before you ask" instead of waiting for me to ask it first. That's the moment autonomy started to be the way of working for my team and me. It set me free of the constant putting out of fires, and it gave my team the freedom to do the work that they were proud of.
Where is this showing up for you right now? Are you still the one putting out every fire, or has your team started catching them before they reach you?
I'd love to hear what's happening on your end. We're all figuring this out together. 🙌
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