For many, there seems to be an inverse relationship between leadership and busyness. The busier the leader is, the more he folds into his own world of technical production. “Get the work out the door. Meet the deadline.” The leader goes missing. The office door is closed. Then, at the nadir of a busy period, the leader is out working with the team, socializing, getting those one-on-ones back on the calendar. The door reopens. I suggest another way. What if, at the zenith of busyness, we leaders intentionally move outward toward our teams. We fight the urge to go it alone. We delegate some of the load, we clearly set deliverables, we meet with our teams. We put the power of the team to work. We win as a team.
With your teams, don’t get out of the way, do this instead
"Get out of the way!" I often hear some version of this sentiment when talking about building a culture to incentivize high performance teams. "You have to find the right people, equip them, and then get out of the way." People who talk about getting out of the way...