T3 – Safeguarding


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A leader must safeguard themself, their teams, their organizations, and the broader society and environment against various potential sources of problems; otherwise, investments, reputations, and other valuable things will be in danger.

Risk-taking

Risk-taking is natural and necessary for any leader. However, such risk-taking must be measured and balanced, and it doesn’t mean that we don’t need safeguarding. Don’t mistake risk-taking for sloppiness.

Amount of safeguarding

There must be a reasonable level of safeguarding: not too much and not too little. Don’t allow the need to safeguard to become an obsession for you.

The right amount of safeguarding is not fixed but depends on the type of solutions you’re working on. Some are sensitive and require more safeguarding, while some can be fine with less.

Timeline

Some leaders limit their safeguarding to the beginning of designing or implementing a solution. However, effective safeguarding starts before the implementation of a solution, while it’s still being designed, because our safeguarding may require a certain type of solution; and it continues at least until the implementation is finished, to create better coverage.

Cost of safeguarding

Safeguarding, like many other things, requires some effort and delays implementation at certain intervals. A good leader should be able to convince people that this investment is justifiable by the bigger savings that will be made in the future.

Behaviors

The following are the effective leader’s behaviors related to safeguarding:

  1. You ensure that relevant uncertainties and unintended consequences are considered when solutions are formed.
  2. You ensure that decisions are lawful and that unlawful claims are identified and addressed.
  3. You ensure that regulations specific to your work are identified and fully complied with.
  4. You ensure that standards and best practices relevant to your work are identified and considered.
  5. You ensure that the relevant people are informed of decisions and formally approve them if necessary.
  6. You ensure that decisions and approvals, especially those from external sources, are recorded and traceable.
  7. You ensure that confidential information stays safe.
  8. You protect your team from distractions, annoyances, and problems to a reasonable degree.
  9. You actively look for problems and justifiably solve them before they pile up and grow.