By Mark Bates, Founder & Leadership Growth Coach, Applebright Coaching
To every visionary leader and purpose-driven business owner reading this:
What if your greatest growth lever wasn’t tighter control—but radical trust?
For years, we’ve been sold a lie: that leadership means having all the answers, directing every move, and bearing sole responsibility for outcomes. This “hero leader” model isn’t just exhausting—it’s a catastrophic waste of your team’s potential.
I’ve seen too many brilliant businesses plateau because their people were waiting for permission to shine. It is also an unintended consequence of sequence of the hero leader in business, specifically in SME’s, that this style of leadership will also result in burnout!
The High Cost of “Leader-Follower” Dynamics
When David Marquet took command of the USS Santa Fe—the U.S. Navy’s worst-performing nuclear submarine—he witnessed a chilling scene: Crew members blindly followed impossible orders simply because “you told me to.” Sound familiar?
This “leader-follower” approach creates systemic fragility:
– Creativity suffocates as teams default to “What do you want me to do?”
– Accountability evaporates when people aren’t owners of outcomes
– Burnout escalates as leaders become bottlenecks for every decision
– Innovation dies because frontline insights never reach decision-makers
As one of my client’s confessed: “I was drowning in tactical fires while my team’s potential went untapped.”
The Leader-Leader Revolution: Where Everyone Commands Their Ship
Marquet flipped the script. By cultivating leadership at every level, he transformed the Santa Fe from worst to first in morale, retention, and combat readiness—and sustained it for a decade after he left . How? By swapping control for Clarity, Competence, and Trust.
“The leader-leader model not only achieves great improvements in effectiveness and morale but also makes the organisation stronger.”
— David Marquet, “Turn the Ship Around!”
This isn’t theory—it’s battle-tested human potential. And in my 30+ years of strategic leadership and command and growth coaching leaders across over 400 SMEs, including top international firms, I’ve seen identical patterns:
When you trust your crew, they’ll steer you through storms.
Game-Changing Mechanisms to Steal from Marquet
1. “I Intend To…” → The Ownership Accelerator
Replace permission-seeking (“Can I…?“) with empowered ownership (“I intend to do X because Y“). This language shift transforms passive teams into proactive commanders of their domain .
Another version of this approach is described by an inspirational author who in my estimation has written a bible of guidance to change leadership style and dynamic, Dan Martell in ‘Buy back your time’. Here he describes getting teams used to 1-3-1 processes.
The team member considers the 1 problem, 3 potential solutions and 1 preferred solution of the three. I coach this principle to free up leadership time, encourage innovation and engagement of the team and to apply these principles both professionally and personally.
Case Study: Enhancing Business Efficiency through Empowerment
Client Challenge
One of my high-performing engineering clients faced challenges with lengthy business processes that impacted productivity and operational efficiency.
The Solution
To address these challenges, the client implemented a cultural shift by encouraging engineers to take ownership of their workflows. Engineers were urged to identify their most effective solutions and create personalised playbooks that they would manage independently.
Results Achieved
As a result of this initiative, the client successfully cut business process time by 40%. This significant improvement was attributed to the increased autonomy given to engineers, allowing them to streamline their processes without waiting for approval.
Key Approach
The phrase “I intend to…” was introduced as part of the engagement strategy. This empowered engineers to proactively communicate their intentions and bypass traditional approval bottlenecks, further enhancing efficiency.
The Case Study Conclusion
By fostering a culture of ownership and accountability, the client not only improved their operational processes but also empowered their engineering team, leading to substantial time savings and increased morale.
2. Certify, Don’t Brief → Competence Over Compliance
Ditch top-down briefings. Instead, have teams demonstrate readiness through action. On the Santa Fe, crews certified their understanding of systems, leading to pre-emptive problem-solving .
Why it works: As Patrick Lencioni’s Working Genius model proves, people excel when operating in their “genius zones” (e.g., Invention, Enablement, Tenacity). Certification taps into natural gifts . This work can be taken even further by considering how incentivisation will recognise leader – leader business decisions and performance.
3. Push Authority to Information → Decisions at the Edge
Frontline staff see risks/opportunities first. Empower them to act. One of my dental clients slashed turnover cost after letting line leaders redesign workflows—because they knew the friction points .
4. The Tangible Business Impact: Beyond Theory
Leader-leader cultures don’t just feel better—they deliver provable financial and operational results :
- 40% faster execution by eliminating decision bottlenecks
- Profit surges up to 21% (Gallup links engagement to profitability)
- Retention spikes of 25–59% (Disengaged talent stays; empowered talent thrives)
- Innovation explosions from teams volunteering ideas (Psychological safety > compliance leadership)
“You can’t buy people’s passion, creativity, or loyalty—it’s volunteered.”
— Stephen Covey, Foreword to “Turn the Ship Around!”
Your First Steps on the Leader-Leader Journey – So What Now?
Transformation starts with courageous micro-actions, not overhaul:
1. Conduct a “Control Audit”
→ List decisions you currently make. Identify 3 to push to frontline teams this month.
2. Pilot “I Intend To…”
→ Launch in one meeting or process this week. When someone asks “Can I?”, gently reframe: “What do you intend?”
3. Map Your Team’s Genius
→ Use Lencioni’s Working Genius assessment to align roles with natural gifts. (Wonder + Invention ≠ Tenacity!). I have an operational and pragmatic version of this to work on with your team.
4. Measure Psychological Safety
→ Ask anonymously: “On a scale of 1-10, how safe do you feel proposing a better way?” Track monthly. This can be embedded in an Employee Value Proposition strategy which is purposefully designed to engage and empower teams – I often employ an independently administered staff engagement survey for my business clients which then becomes a monthly action plan transparently made accountable to the team!
5. Reward Smart Initiative, Not Just Results
→ Publicly celebrate a “brilliant mistake” where someone took ownership.
(Example: “Kudos to Sam for testing the new workflow—we’ll use those lessons!”)
Navigating Your Leadership Transformation
Shifting from leader-follower to leader-leader requires rewiring deep habits:
- Resist the “Hero” Urge: When crises hit, your instinct will be to grab control. Pause. Ask: “Who is closest to this problem can own the solution?”
- Embrace “I Don’t Know”:These three words build psychological safety faster than any training .
- Invest in Competence: Authority without capability breeds chaos. Pair delegation with skills development (e.g., decision frameworks, risk-assessment tools) . This links with a key theme too, the Employee Value Proposition – what is the business doing to grow, to develop and to recognise and reward the team, incentivising them in the business growth empowerment?
“Leadership is difficult. But it’s a skill you can learn. Train leaders to empower teams early—it impacts everything from performance to retention.”
— Stefan Lülf, Lepaya
Ready to Scale Your Leadership Legacy?
Marquet’s submarine had zero margin for error.
Neither does your business.
The leader-leader model scales because it’s built on human potential, not hierarchy.
If you’re ready to:
– Replace burnout with ownership
– Turn followers into leaders
– Build a self-repairing culture
Let’s rebuild your leadership OS together:
– 🚀 90-Day Leadership Turnarounds: Transform delegation, accountability, and decision flows for rapid results.
– 🌟 Team Genius Mapping: Discover and align roles with innate strengths through Working Genius.
– 🔍 Staff Engagement and Psychological Safety Audits: Evaluate and enhance trust metrics for a thriving workplace.
https://applebrightcoaching.co.uk/welcome/contact/)
PS — Retention crumbling? Innovation stale? Remember: The best leaders don’t create followers—they create more leaders. Your crew is ready to steer. Give them the helm