By Alan Berson
Common Developing Others Challenge:
We only have 24 hours in the day and yet few of us use them wisely, with a single-minded focus on our organizational role. When severely challenged, we tend to look inward or to the one or two people who are already overloaded – our go-to people. One of you gets to be the hero, on occasion, which is fine; yet no one wants to have to be a hero constantly.
The Solution:
As leaders and managers, we must inspire and engage the best in everyone around us. Use downtime wisely as a chance to mentor and coach. Even when you are at your busiest, you can chose to invest a few extra hours per week building capability and becoming able to trust in the competence of others. Cross-train some of your people and give advanced training to others. Learn not just to delegate, but also teach your folks to be better at delegating. Finally, if you and your folks reach your breaking point, push back at your boss. You will be amazed at how often he or she is able to lend a hand.
The Thought Process:
Our problems grow incrementally until we can no longer work around them and the probability of failure looms. We default to acting like managers, not leaders, when stressed — especially when facing important commitments in a short time frame. We then take advantage of our go-to people and ourselves just to get a job accomplished.
When boundaries are not fairly set and respected, we all suffer from overwork. This results in fatigue which lowers creativity and performance, which in turn increases overwork. This is called a vicious cycle in systems theory and a cycle of doom in leadership circles. That is why you lose some of your best people – they flee to a saner environment where there is time to feel great about both who they are and what they can accomplish.
Alan Berson is an author, keynote speaker, executive coach, Learning Director at Wharton Executive Education and the CEO of Leadership Conversation LLC based in Potomac, MD. His recent book, LEADERSHIP CONVERSATIONS: Challenging High-Potential Managers to Become Great Leaders, was released by Jossey-Bass in March of this year and was named as one of the top 10 management/leadership books by Amazon.com. An extensive review can be found at Knowledge@Wharton.
