I read an article about leading people by Adm. Hyman G. Rickover of United States Navy. The first 3 sentences were more than enough to understand the whole article.
Human experience shows that people, not organizations or management systems, get things done. For this reason, subordinates must be given authority and responsibility early in their careers. In this way they develop quickly and can help the manager do his work. The manager, of course, remains ultimately responsible and must accept the blame if subordinates make mistakes.
We should push for “executing” the ideas, not just coming up with them. This is very much what the culture of innovation and experimentation. Learning, doing, failing, and learning again, and doing again, and failing again. This loop shouldn’t stop. There won’t ever be an ideal state, which means the loop should continue running.
Without an aligned vision and an aligned plan, it is not possible to make independent decision that are converging to the same direction. It also makes the self-organisation and self-structure inefficient, since the reason of existence is unknown. The clarity of purpose is crucial in guiding the team through the developemnt of a solution to a complex problem.
Helping others grow can make the difference. Most people want to grow in their career and life. Enabling and supporting this growth of the people motivates them to deliver their best. In easy times it might not be so critical, but in hard times it separates the winners from the rest.
Setting high standards, giving accountability, enabling and unblocking the growth and communicating of vision are, in my opinion, the focus traits to be able to successfully manage a group of people.