When I first stepped into an Associate Editor role, I thought my job was to be a human encyclopedia. I hovered over every reporter’s shoulder, corrected every minor comma, and jumped into every Slack thread to show I was “on top of it.”
I wasn’t leading. I was a bottleneck.
The most effective leaders I’ve ever worked for—the ones who commanded respect from the most cynical, hard-bitten journalists in Fleet Street—all shared a surprising trait: Strategic Ignorance.
1. The Power of “I Don’t Know”
In many corporate cultures, “I don’t know” is treated as a weakness. In a newsroom, it’s a tool. When a leader admits they don’t have the answer, it creates a vacuum that their team is forced to fill. It grants the team ownership.
The Editorial Insight: Your job isn’t to provide the answers; it’s to ask the questions that make your team find better ones.
2. Radical Delegation (The “Heart Attack” Test)
I once had a mentor ask me: “If you had a minor heart attack tomorrow and had to disappear for two weeks, would your department collapse or thrive?” If the answer is “collapse,” you haven’t built a team; you’ve built a cult of personality.
The Goal: Build systems that make you redundant.
The Paradox: The more replaceable you make yourself in the day-to-day “doing,” the more indispensable you become as a strategist.
3. Edit the Culture, Not Just the Work
A great editor doesn’t just fix a story; they fix the writer. They look for patterns of error and address the root cause. Similarly, great leaders don’t micromanage tasks; they manage the environment. If your team is missing deadlines, don’t just yell about the clock—look at the workflow. Is the brief unclear? Is the “approval” process too bloated? Fix the machine, and the parts will take care of themselves.
4. Protect the “Quiet Time”
The most valuable thing a leader can give their team isn’t a bonus or a fancy title—it’s protection from distractions. In the newsroom, the Editor-in-Chief is the shield. They handle the angry publishers and the corporate politics so the reporters can focus on the story.
Actionable Tip: Cancel one “status update” meeting this week and give that hour back to your team. They will respect you more for that hour of peace than for any motivational speech you could give.
