Reduce Your Team's Dependence on You

Brett Snyder, who’s Founder and President of Cranky Concierge air travel, writes over at Intuit’s Small Business blog.  Brett has some terrific thoughts for leaders who need to reduce the organization’s dependence on them:

I’ve been on two trips in the past week, and I’m tired.  Every time I travel, it reminds me how important it is to get the business to a point where it can run without me.  When you start a business yourself, too much of the knowledge automatically resides with you.  Finding someone else with similar skills just provides a backup and doesn’t add much benefit, so the key is finding someone with other areas of expertise who still has enough overlapping skills to be able to fill in.

Although Brett’s advice is geared to small businesses, it has value for leaders in large companies as well. If you are involved in every aspect of your team’s operations, you risk burning out, or allowing the business to become incapacitated if you should have to temporarily remove yourself due to a personal or professional issue.

In addition to hiring team members who complement your strengths and fill in your areas of weakness, it’s critical that right-hand men and women are people who you trust implicitly and who know almost as much about the organization and team as you do.

Decision Making Authority

You should regularly bring these individuals up to speed on everything you have your hands in, and allow them to independently manage important initiatives without your constant input.  Encourage them to make decisions on their own so that if a day comes when you aren’t there to act as a sounding board, they will be able to handle things seamlessly.

Supervision of Team Members

Instead of having to personally manage the work of the entire team, assign your right-hand men and women to supervise both the daily responsibilities and the long-term career growth of junior members. This approach will prevent you from becoming too indispensible as a manager and mentor, and will also help to ensure tight integration.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

 

Comments

[Bill]

There are people who want to stay safe by taking charge of everything but for sure, achievements will be appreciated more if you have found ways to empower your team.

[Alex Dogliotti]

HI! This article makes sense. However, it also made me think of one of Seth Godin's posts he published a few days ago, where he distinguishes between authority and responsibility. When you're handed tasks you're given authority to perform them. But when you ask to do them, you take responsibility. What made me connect the two is the amount of unilateral actions described in the article. You (as a manager) have to manage and develop these people. But what if those people love the authority, but (like many) hate the responsibility? How are you going to make sure that responsibility comes first?

[Alexandra Levit]

@Bill: I definitely have the potential to be one of those people, but you're absolutely right. Teach them to fish and they'll eat for a year, as they say.

@Alex: This is the difference between leaders and non-leaders. I think personality plays a huge role, and there's nothing wrong with that. Thanks for all the terrific comments you've been sharing.