“It’s your decision, but I really hope you’ll do it my way.”
“Make sure you run that communication past me before you send it out.”
“I’d like to see the detailed metrics for your team.”
If you’re a manager of managers and you find yourself saying things like that, you might be considering yourself indispensable for their success. Just like a new first-line manager may find it hard to let go of the details of the work, a new manager of managers can find it hard to let go of the details of managing the work.
But when you stay engaged at that level of detail, your focus leans more toward preventing the risk of failure than toward encouraging the potential for success.
When you have other leaders reporting to you, they need the opportunity to lead, to make decisions, and to learn from the natural consequences of those decisions. Sure, you want to help them avoid fatal mistakes, but experiencing some failures is crucial for their development.
And when the leaders who report to you have the chance to develop from their failures, their strength multiplies the strength of the organization.
As long as you see yourself as indispensable in their success, you’re actually diminishing your value. You become more valuable when you empower others and free yourself to concentrate your efforts on even bigger, broader challenges and opportunities.
If you’re having a hard time knowing how much to involve yourself in the decisions of your teams, let’s talk. Visit stevedwire.com/talk to start the conversation.
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