The manager's core job is removing obstacles, not directing every decision

Campbell's operating philosophy, as the authors describe it, treated a manager's primary function as clearing the path for skilled people to do their best work, rather than personally making every call or micromanaging execution. This meant actively identifying what was blocking a team — unclear priorities, interpersonal friction, resource gaps — and working to resolve those blockers rather than adding another layer of direction on top of already capable people.

This contrasts with a command-and-control model where authority flows from having the best individual answers; Campbell instead assumed that the people closest to the work usually had better answers than he did, and his value was in creating the conditions for those answers to surface and get acted on.

The authors argue this distinction matters most with genuinely talented teams, where excessive top-down direction actively suppresses better ideas that would otherwise emerge from people with more direct expertise. A manager's job is less about having the best answers and more about clearing the way for the team's best answers to emerge.