We are sure that this example will be very familiar to you.
Many years ago we were restructuring a company related to Web Design.
- We knew nothing about Web Design, but we knew about numbers.
We had to restructure the Teams, Costs, Departments, fire many employees, etc.
The thing is:
There was one Manager that had been promoted (before we arrived) because he was a very talented Designer.
We realized soon that, we had a big problem with him:
- He didn’t know how to Lead.
He still had a “Designer Mindset” instead of a “Manager Mindset”.
What do we mean?
- He was weighting down the Team he managed because he didn’t Delegate.
- He thought that he had to supervise everything until exhaustion.
- He reworked virtually everything his Team presented to him.
- etc.
Instead of managing, he was “sort of” doing everything himself.
And his Team was totally demotivated and poorly coordinated.
That is not Leading.
When you lead, you look for what’s best for the team you’re on, even if it’s not what you personally like.
- He felt that he had to control everything.
- He didn’t assessed if his “supervision” really contributed that much.
When you Lead, in a Company, you judge what would be better for the Company, not for your ego.
- He was wasting lot of time and resources.
- He would have had to overcome his unique view of things.
A Leader is somebody that thinks beyond himself/herself.
- That is why the collectives need Leaders.
- Because the Leader “Guides” a group of people and cares about them.
This situation is very common, and takes place when somebody has been promoted for his Technical Skills.
Suddenly, he (or she) needs to Manage, and that is not what he was good at.
- You have to do something that wasn’t the reason you got promoted.
What did we do?
We coached him, teaching him How to:
- Manage.
- Prioritize.
- Organize his Tasks.
- etc.
Nobody had taught him How to Manage so, it would have been unfair to fire him before giving him a chance.
- In fact, we gave him a try and he became a very good Manager over time.
* In other Projects we cannot afford the benefit of the doubt and, we would have had to hire a new Manager.
- In this Project, we had enough Time and Resources to train him.
