Agency Is Agency Is Agency
The other day I saw a tweet from George Mack. It depicts agency as a triangle. At each point, there’s a maxim: “I will figure it out”, “I can fix it if it breaks”, and “I am willing to be misunderstood.”
It’s stuck with me for a couple of reasons. One, for a long time, agency has seemed obvious to me. Agency looks like determination. It looks like action. It looks as clear as the color blue. Two, I had considered agency to be binary. You have it or you don’t. Or maybe more specifically, you’re using your agency or you’re not. But looking at the agency triangle, I realized agency is more of a spectrum — the more of each tenet of agency that is present, the more agentic one can be. The trick then becomes how can we activate in these three ways? And for leaders, how can we activate it in others?
As a leader, one of the most leveraged things we can do is spot agency and nurture it. Our job is to help other leaders achieve growth towards autonomy at their level of impact and then push them to grow to the next level of impact. People are agentic up to a point and then they need support. This support can be a foundation to enable the growth. Or it can be amplification to lift and share the impact with others.
“I will figure it out.” We all need to believe we’re capable of something we have not done before. When we see the pieces that comprise the whole of a skillset, we should be calling it out, authentically. And authentically is the key. To give people false confidence is a sin in and of itself.
“I can fix it if it breaks.” Is this a Type 1 or Type 2 decision? Reminding your team members of the many, many decisions we make that are reversible is a key perspective and challenge you can bring to your discussions. If your team member breaks something, give them space to fix it.
“I am willing to be misunderstood.” Give your team members space to share their mental models. Give them the space to refine them. And when your team member takes a novel idea to the organization, support them in the rooms and forums they are not in.
“I will figure it out.” “I can fix it if it breaks.” “I am willing to be misunderstood.” All facets of the same — agency is agency is agency. Identifying these facets and then nurturing the agency in your org is one of the most leveraged ways to grow your impact over a long horizon. Besides, there’s nothing quite like seeing your team members take on new big things and be successful in the process.