The above illustrates “Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum” is a basic model of leadership theory that illustrates the relationship between the degree of freedom a manager wants to give to a team and the level of authority the manager uses. As the freedom of the team increases so the authority of the manager decreases.
Understanding how much authority to retain and how much liberty of decision making to give away is a complex discretion, and is shown in this picture on a sliding continuum. Various people will be at different places depending on the task so you should be constantly adapting your style to match that. Once you understand this, you will feel able to give your team extra responsibility and help them grow to be ever more capable and trustworthy.
