It's All About Mindset!

Originally shared in A Daily Dose Of Leadership on July 14, 2020.

If you want it done right, you better do it yourself!

Ever feel that way? Of course you have! Be honest, when was the last time you actually said that out loud with a sarcastic tone when someone dropped the ball in one way or another? Not only was the task not completed just exactly like we had shown them, it took them far longer than it would have taken us and now we still have to circle back to take care of it ourselves… UGH!!!

Anyone who’s moved from being a high performing individual contributor into a role where they have responsibility for overseeing a team of people, regardless of the industry or their specific job title, has undoubtedly felt this way more than a few times! While it’s fairly natural, and typically considered normal, it’s absolutely not necessary…

In his most recent book, The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek said that “leaders are not responsible for results. Leaders are responsible for people who are responsible for results!”

The messages in this series have been pretty focused on the current events we’ve been facing over the last several months; and for good reason. While we may or may not have been experiencing crises of historic proportions, nearly every media channel around us has certainly eluded to that being the case – mainstream media and that of the social persuasion…

But there will come a time when we have to resume our normal lives and get down to business. And one of the things that will have a tremendous impact on how effective we are as leaders is the mindset we choose!

That feeling of needing to do it ourselves if it’s going to be done right is a mindset. Accepting what Sinek suggested and focusing more on the individual rather than the results they’re working toward is also a mindset. And those two mindsets are in direct opposition with one another!

As that high performing individual contributor, I often had complete control of the results I produced on a daily basis. But as I moved into roles where I depended more and more on the people around me to perform various tasks that fed those results, that complete control became an illusion.

In so many cases, the folks moving into roles with responsibility for a team of individual contributors are indeed the best in the business at the tasks they’re now overseeing. And in many of those situations, they quite likely can perform each and every task better and fast than the majority of people on their team. But they can’t do everything at the same time! They need each person on the team to play a role.

This is where it becomes critical, especially if that person hopes to actually lead rather than just bark orders as a supervisor, to make the move from holding complete responsibility for every individual results to taking responsibility for developing the individuals who can produce great results. And we’ll look at steps we can each take to make this happen through the next few blogs.