So you got the promotion and got a team.
Yippee!!! It’s what you were working for and it finally happened.
“Now I can prove that I’m a leader”
“Now I can really get more done and make more of a difference”
“Now I can be the boss that I wish I’d had”
Any of these resonate?
And you are 3 months in, maybe even 6 or even a year and the reality is somewhat different…
You spend your days solving problems for the team
Your door (if you have one) has turned into a revolving door
It seems like you have a queue by your desk
Your Teams messenger is constantly pinging with “just one question…”
If you’re not giving solutions, you’re listening to their problems or resolving issues between them.
And your boss wants you to do all that, continue delivering and take on more, because now you have a team.
So you spend your lunchtime, your evenings and weekends catching up on the work that YOU need to do and on all those things you’ve said YES to that you don’t want to give to your team because they are too stretched!!
And breathe…
It really doesn’t have to be this way, and it all starts with taking a good look at your beliefs that are at the root of all of this.
Now stay with me…
You’re ambitious, you care about the business and you care about the people you work with. Up until this point, you’ve been rewarded for delivery so you have delivered. Now, the organisation still wants you to deliver, but they expect you to do it differently – but no one ever says that or shows you how to do it differently.
So here are some beliefs you need to adopt:
Delivery now means how the team as a whole delivers and not just me – if I’m delivering it all, I’m failing as a leader.
Having a team means that the team should be able to deliver more than the sum of its parts, so as a team you need to figure out how best to do this.
My role is to remove obstacles to that delivery
From your position and with your experience, you will be seeing obstacles to delivery that your team are not well placed to see. Using your time to remove these obstacles will help the team go further and faster
Giving my team the solutions means I’m not helping them develop and that’s a core objective as a leader
We can often fall into the trap of thinking “if I just tell them what to do we’ll get there quicker” but how much will your people learn? What you’ll find is that they keep coming back to you for the same or similar things and that you are training them to just ask you, rather than think of a solution themselves.
If we are all continuously stretched then I have to manage expectations with my manager and the business
Being stretched is normal from time to time, but it shouldn’t be the norm. Looking after your health and wellbeing and that of your team so that you can be more productive for the long term, should be your priority. This means pushing back when necessary and setting boundaries.
If I say yes to something it means that I am saying no to something else
Now this could mean that you are saying no to lunch, to a weekend, to time with family and friends or even to your development and career as you are too busy to spot the opportunities that would be the most beneficial.
Want me to walk you through the steps to take to follow through on those beliefs and increase your team performance without working more?
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