What Rental Cars Teach Us About Leadership

Armed with her bachelor’s degree in marketing, my daughter Kate was ready to embark on her career. One of her first jobs was working for Enterprise Rent-a-Car in their management training program. This meant working at a busy local office and learning the car rental business, and every job that goes on in a branch office.

About a week or so on the job, she told me that she had spent the day learning how to check-in a car when it was returned and how meticulously she had to inspect the car for damage inside and out. She commented how dirty most of the cars were when they were returned… trash on the inside and road grime on the outside. “I don’t know how they can get that trashed up in just a day or two!”

Then she said something profound. “It’d be a lot different if they owned the car instead of renting it. Since they don’t own it they don’t care what happens to it and figure someone at Enterprise will clean it up for them.

“Kate, you just learned your first and most important leadership lesson,” I remarked. “Lead the people you manage to OWN their work and their results if you want their total commitment to excellence. This means they’ve got to own the process as well as the outcome.”

Mark the Micromanager

We’ve likely all encountered, at one time or another, a “Mark the Micromanager.” He’s the one telling you exactly how he wants you to do the work and stands a foot or two back, looking over your shoulder at what you are doing and criticizing anything he thinks is a mistake. He thinks he’s the only one in the building that can do the job right. He never gives his staff a chance to OWN their work… his people are like car renters who really don’t care about the cars they drive because they don’t own them.

Mark the Micromanager never takes advantage of the skills, knowledge, and talents of the people he has on staff. What happens is the people with the greatest potential give up and move on, where they can grow and develop away from micromanagement. On the other hand, the underperformers give up and stay and put up with Mike the Micromanager, never reaching their potential.

When People Own the Outcome, They Must Own the Plan

When people simply follow their supervisor’s detailed directions they are not invested in the assignment nor the outcome. Like car renters.

Conversely, when people have the responsibility to develop the plan for how they will achieve an objective, they are free to think for themselves, become creative, and build ownership in both the plan and the outcome. All they need is a manager who will work patiently with them to help them develop an effective plan. By the time he or she is through helping them plan, they fully own the project and are excited to deliver results.

Some best practice tips to help someone “own the plan:”

Of course, it takes diligence and an investment of time for managers to lead their staff to become self-directed and competent. But there is no better way to encourage people to do their best and want to be part of the team.

Bottom Line

How about you and your boss? Does he or she encourage the development of your talents and skills by describing the desired outcome, then having you build your plan to achieve it? Or is he or she a micromanager who doesn’t believe you are capable of thinking for yourself?

This article is based on principles taught in Boyer Management Group’s acclaimed management and leadership development series, Leading Through People™ Module 6, Performance Management.