Directive

Competing priorities can leave capable people waiting for a decision only their manager can make. Directive: Leadership Made Simple helps supervisors, managers, and team leads give people a usable next move. Through a fictional print shop and other everyday workplace examples, Don Kelso examines when to direct, how to explain priorities and limits, and how to check that an instruction can actually be carried out. Learn to hear objections, build workable escalation routes, monitor at an appropriate distance, and replace a direction when the facts change. The book also asks when extra control should end. Its practical questions help you prepare clear decisions while leaving room for the judgment and corrections the work needs.

Inside the book:

• Identify the decision that belongs to you and name what will have to wait.
• Give an actionable instruction with clear ownership, limits, and necessary support.
• Check understanding and make it possible to raise a warning or exception.
• Adjust monitoring, communicate a changed decision, and hand control back deliberately.

Nine chapters follow the work from taking responsibility through making direction usable to ending extra control. A quick reference helps you prepare an instruction, send an exception, or repair conflicting directions. The examples are fictional teaching situations; the questions are intended for ordinary supervisory work within your actual authority.