In the past year he has been promoted three times. With each move there is more responsibility and new challenges. A lot can change in 12 months!
- Now he goes into work before breakfast with coffee in hand and comes home well after dinner.
- Lunch breaks are fast and furious. If he takes one at all.
- Calls to family are "while on the run," stuck in traffic, or walking to and from a destination.
- Calls about work can occur any time of the day interrupting any activity.
- The paperwork on his desk gets deeper.
He is being promoted again to oversee a dozen systems. He only knows three of them. Doug will be hiring a team to work under him.
That's when I got the phone call.
I anticipated a discussion about time management or priority management. But that was not the question. Wish I had his energy and drive! Doug's question was about how to get ready for this promotion and how to go about learning nine new systems. To top it off, he called while driving to a quick lunch with his wife — I could hear the wind and the open car door "ringing" in the phone.
In the space between the words I could hear Doug's gears turning and trying to grind out a solution. He wanted to take on the responsibility of his entire team and master the 12 systems himself.
The underlying question was about what it means to lead.
*******
No one can play all the positions in a team. Each player must play his position well.
No business leader should do everyone's job.
Leadership is not being the jack-of-all-trades or the hands-on micromanager.
Identify what needs to be done.
Define what each player is to do.
Find the players with the right skill set to play each part.
Back off and let them do their work.
Lead by casting the vision.
Lead by defining the boundaries, obligations and responsibilities.
Lead by empowering employee choices.
Hold employees accountable for performance.
*******
Text message at 8:21 a.m. "Thanks for your help yesterday. You sparked a lot of ideas for me. I know what I need to do now. You have helped me look at life a lot differently."
Maybe we'll get around to time management and priority management next week. Time permitting.
What new responsibilities have you taken on in the past year?
No comments:
Post a Comment