Be involved, be supportive, challenge, provide guidance, coach skills and approach, BUT let your people do their job – until they stop doing it or it’s clear they will fail, not before. If they do fail or failure is likely, then make an official change of personnel or assign the task to someone else.

To illustrate one of the easiest leadership mistakes to make, here’s a painful story from my youth. Like most 9 year-old boys in the US I played Little League baseball. I hadn’t yet found the little athlete inside of me at that point. I wasn’t very good but I loved the game. Every day involved throwing, batting and fielding practice.

One day a friend came over to play. Nothing abnormal about that until he told me that my dad had asked him to help me with my baseball skills. I know my dad cared. He wanted to keep this “help” a secret to spare my feelings but that didn’t work out. Eventually I got pretty good at baseball but the game never held the same attraction after that day. If he had talked directly with me instead and we worked out a plan together, it would have been different.

Boo-hoo, just a vulnerable kid right? Well, aren’t we all just big kids?

As a leader, when you don’t think the task is getting done the way you want it to and then DO something, what are the ramifications?

• What happens when you send an email to reinforce your desire for something to get done and include numerous people even though you’ve assigned the task to one of your team members?
• What happens when you bring in a consultant to “help” someone?
• How about asking someone to “look into” a project?

Is your action motivational or does it show your lack of trust?

Think carefully before taking action. It’s important to let people do the job they’ve been assigned, their way. Yes, set milestones and work with the person to take corrective action if necessary. Be careful though that you aren’t unwittingly undermining your valuable resource.

The downside of jumping into a task you’ve already assigned to someone can be avoided by simply talking before taking action. Yes, I wrote a book on initiative, but action for the sake of action is just silly. Perhaps your team member is struggling and needs your assistance. Perhaps they would welcome some outside resources? Or maybe they just need to understand your priorities better.

When the two of you work on it together, in private, a solution can be identified that maintains their passion and your position as a leader.

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Photo Credit: Zach Klein

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