Timothy Geithner by way of knowledge, SMEs, and leadership

There’s a delicate balance in management. Understanding what those who report to you do and what they know is important. But is understanding everything required? The more complex the issue, the greater the difficulty in understanding everything about that subject.

Good leaders surround themselves with subject matter experts (SME) who provide them what are expected to be well informed, thoughtfully considered recommendations on their area of expertise. The leader takes this information and along with the information from their other SMEs formulate a decision on the matter at hand.

Good leaders acknowledge when they’ve miscalculated the response. Bad leaders will blame the SMEs, but a good leader knows they are the ones ultimately responsible because they let the SME persuade their decision.

So today President Obama said this:

This says, Mr. President, that you are surrounding yourselves with the wrong people. Timothy Geithner is ineffective and improperly advising you. You are the president and you are responsible. So do something about it already.