Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

As long as you have employees reporting to you, the degree of success you eventually achieve will depend on how competent you are at coaching them to function at their full potential in the workplace.

Once you start managing others, it becomes important to appreciate why succeeding by doing most things by yourself, when you have people you can involve, will not help you, or the company in the long term.

Let’s Use The Analogy Of A Soccer Team

A gifted striker who has the ability to take on entire defences and score, can choose to do that every time.

Or, he can (wisely) do so intermittently, while also exploring ways to involve other team members in creating scoring chances.

By opting for the latter strategy, he could avoid needlessly straining himself to super perform all the time.

But even more importantly, he would make it possible for the entire team to evolve greater cohesion and understanding, so that even when he does not play (e.g due to injury or suspension), the team will still put up a decent showing against any opposition.

That’s the kind of role you need to play with your workplace team.

Stop Thinking Of Doing It Yourself

You need to lead and manage your direct reports or employees to take the right steps to move the company closer to its goals.

What’s more, you must endeavour to prepare them to do it by themselves, in the event that you’re not around.

What if you get promoted or transferred at short notice for instance?

If you’ve always been doing most things yourself, by the time you try to handover, none of your subordinates may be able to take in everything in that short period.

And YOU would look bad, for failing to prepare your subordinates (at least one of them) to competently take over key aspects of your job!

If Your Staff Don’t Know How, You Must Show Them – and Persist Till They Get It!

Do not make the mistake of complaining that your subordinates are not up to learning what is needed.

That’s why YOU are there: to provide the needed coaching and direction to get them to perform at the desired level.

And you may have to be really creative and relentlessly demanding of each person, to ensure you get the results you want.

(Note that it is assumed that you operate a rigorous recruitment system that prevents mediocres from gaining entry into the workforce.

Otherwise, most of the advice offered here may likely not work, as such persons tend to hold fast to a negative mental attitude!)

Coaching and directing your subordinates will be easy for you, if you dispense with an “I’ll-do-it-myself-if-they-don’t-get-it” mentality.

Two Strategies You Can Adopt

1. Develop the habit of putting individual employees or subordinates on their toes.

You can do this by deliberately asking spontaneous questions that test actual knowledge or understanding of specific work areas or job aspects.

That will force them to develop mental alertness essential for smart decision making.

2. Employ the trial by fire strategy in exposing them to handling of important job related tasks.

Give a brief introduction of the task to be done, or role to be played.

Then have them individually put what you’ve explained to practical use in real life situations, from which you will be deliberately absent.

Watch to see who sinks and who swims.

Use what you learn to provide corrective feedback to each person – and also to identify individuals who demonstrate the greatest capacity to deliver required performance.

Repeat the process as often as needed or possible, until you are sure your team has a firm grasp of what to do, to make things work to required standards at all times.

Final Words

The success of a manager or leader in the workplace will often be determined by how well he is seen to have prepared those who worked with him, to excel on their jobs, and also take on higher responsibility.

When you work alone, it’s easy to focus on doing what you know how to do well.

You rarely have to concern yourself with whether others will be able to pick up where you left off.

But as you get promoted, you’ll have less hands-on work to do, and more responsibility for supervising those who have to do those hands-on tasks that you excelled at to earn your promotion.

Suddenly, instead of thinking and planning for yourself alone, you now have to do so for yourself, and others.

It can sometimes be a difficult mindset change to make.

But if you want to enjoy any semblance of success in your new position – and especially if you hope to climb even further up the promotion ladder – then you’ll need to make this change.