There should be no doubt that a culture of governance requires effective oversight. A gardener has to oversee the garden, where a thousand flowers bloom, in order to provide wonderful harmony. A conductor has to oversee an orchestra, where musicians play different instruments, in order to produce great music. A supervisor and everyone else vested with authority in an organization, where individuals and lower-level units pursue initiatives freely and creatively, have to harmonize, coordinate, and direct those initiatives towards the organization’s strategic priorities.

In playing their oversight role, supervisors and the leaders of the organization may on occasion have to intervene directly and give out clear commands and instructions. In an emergency and in other extreme situations, those who are in command must act decisively and as strongly as the circumstances call for. In these instances, their intervention may have to be strong and their control tight. Hopefully, those instances are rare, and they do not last very long.

Ordinarily, however, under more normal circumstances, oversight means installing a system of accountability.

Every individual and every lower-level operating unit would be given a long enough rope with which to maneuver and show their talents and capabilities. They are invested with freedom of enterprise, and in the exercise of that freedom they are given adequate support, i.e., enough to enable them to succeed.

What type and level of support should be given?

The answer to this question comes out of the organization’s strategy map. Whatever individuals and lower-level operating units need so as to contribute positively towards the effective pursuit of the organization’s strategic priorities should be given to them. Both moral (psychological) and logistical (financial, personnel, technical) support that they require as they freely go about their business of producing breakthrough results in favor of those strategic priorities should be provided as and when needed.

Beyond such direct support, individuals and lower-level operating units should also be given an opportunity to constantly upgrade and strengthen themselves for the long haul. In other words, even in the process of their contributing towards the organization’s common good, they should also be able to add to their long-term capabilities and sharpen their talent for getting things done better and more effectively.

Thus, their own strategic position is secured and made stronger. Their scope of freedom is widened; moreover, their capacity to take fresh and more positive initiatives is brought to a higher level. Instead of being merely effective instruments for pursuing the organization’s strategic priorities as the organization realizes its vision, individuals and lower-level operating units are also given every opportunity of becoming better all-around men and women, whose worth as positive assets of the organization and of the country as a whole is deeply appreciated and constantly upgraded.

Oversight means much more than getting individuals and lower-level operating units to contribute towards pursuing the organization’s strategic priorities. It also means helping them become positive assets as better all-around men and women, whose worth keeps rising with every positive contribution they make.