Are You a Hands-off Leader?
Inc. Points out 3 ways you could be failing as a leader, and one of them really resonates with me:
1. You Need To Have a Hand In Everything
Your company grew fast and at first, you had to do a lot of different roles within the company. And as you grew, you continued to have a hand in everything, despite hiring talented individuals who can handle many of the tasks that used to fall solely on your shoulders. This behavior will not only limit your ability to grow further, but can cause you to lose talented team members who feel undervalued within your organization. So to stop this one in its tracks, you must get to the root of why you feel the need to have a hand in everything. This behavior unusually stems from the fear of being left out or the fear of having no power to change or impact something. It could also come from your need to feel important within your company. Once you can identify your triggers, you can start deliberate practice of handing over responsibilities to capable team members, starting with smaller tasks and moving up as your comfort level increases.
3 Ways You Could Be Failing as a Leader
And this is really easy to do. I can remember reading in Phil Visher’s book that when he started hiring people that he was hoping that he could turn things over to them, but he came to believe he would just have been better off following his spreadsheet, because the people that he hired weren’t him, and he didn’t see the end coming.
How many leaders believe that they can just get the job done better if they did it themselves? And sometimes, they’re right! That’s a big problem. Sometimes you know the situation better, you have all the knowledge and skills and you care about the item better than anyone else. But what you’ll soon find out is that if you don’t have someone else help, if you can’t confer the skills and passion, you’ll never have the growth.
Whether it’s the mother that is frustrated with the kids at home that don’t get the chores all the way done, or the coder that thinks that they have to code this module because theirs is the only design, we have to learn to have those with us learn, grow and probably some day pass us. But that involves getting out of the way and not having to be involved in everything– so you can focus on the most important things.
My only advice is, just like everything, don’t take this to the extreme where you become so divorced from your project, skill, or whatever it is that you aren’t doing it regularly. It’s important to be able to do what your team-members are doing so you know when it’s going well or off the rails. You must be with them– not back relaxing when everyone else is on the front lines. Take that lesson from King David!
