Client Question: “When things aren’t going well with our projects, I tend to jump in and start doing things to help them. I know that may help solve that individual challenge, but it isn’t helping the team grow and develop. How can I stop putting myself in the middle and trust them to handle it?”
This situation comes up a lot for new managers and also for managers who have not learned how to delegate effectively. It is really easy to revert back to the things that got you promoted in the first place. Your ability to get things done is what people admired in you and gave you success. However, now you need to change how you are thinking about getting things done. Your role is to get things done through others now. They need to grow and develop their skills and you need to give them those opportunities. One of my former managers told me that he used to look at all the work on his plate and ask himself ” why can’t I delegate these things?” This is a question to ask yourself especially for the things that come easily to you. It isn’t buying you anything to keep doing them and it could benefit someone else on your team a whole lot more.
Here is a great article called 5 Ways to Create an Ownership Mentality on Your Team by Joel Garfinkle that provides some ideas on how to navigate this challenge. It will take some time for you to get better at delegating and work on changing your mindset. Start with these simple approaches in this article today and evaluate how those changes are working for you. Even these small steps will help your team grow into a high performing team and keep you out of doing the work.
The value for you is that you have a team that is doing great things, delivering results and their confidence is growing. More importantly though, you are able to focus on being strategic, providing oversight to your team and communicating with all of your stakeholders on a regular basis. Remember that you are creating leaders that could potentially take over your role someday. This needs to be your goal so that you are not held back from pursuing a future role, because you have no one to take over your current role.
Does this situation sound like something you are going through? Are you struggling to delegate and build a great team? I am working with my clients to successfully move past these issues and be seen as strong leaders with high performing teams. Let’s have a conversation on how we could work together to do that same thing for you and your organization. Send me a note at susan@susanmbarber.com and let’s find a time to meet.