Develop high performers AND get out of the weeds with this *one tip*

Last week, I talked about the difference between micromanaging and closely managing someone's performance, stemming from a common frustration I hear from leaders - "I have to micromanage because they're new or not performing well!" (check out that locker room chat here)

But the reality is that you shouldn't be micromanaging, you should be managing their performance more closely. 

The next question is this… How do you get to the point where you can trust someone to take over a task and deliver at a high level?

I learned this the hard way early in my leadership career - and it's a mistake I still see leaders make all the time. I had someone on my team who should have been able to complete a task - but it was clear they didn’t know how. My mistake? Assuming they’d figure it out on their own, instead of helping them develop the skill (and then getting frustrated when they didn't figure it out…).

Check out this week's video for what I should have done - and what you can do instead!

• Transcript

  [00:00:00] Last week I talked about the difference between micromanaging and closely managing someone's performance. This comes up a lot from leaders that I work with when they say you have to micromanage people if they are new, their performance isn't good.

  It's a safety concern, timeliness concern, et cetera.

   So last week I talked about how you're not really micromanaging. You're actually just managing someone's performance more closely. So I want to build on that.

  How do you get to the point where you actually can trust somebody to take over that task and deliver really, really well? let me tell you about my own leadership faux pas from back in the day.

  I had a leader who reported to me who, realistically given the position they were in, probably should have been able to do this task. It was pretty clear that they did not know how to do this. Here's the critical mistake that I made, and that I still see a lot of leaders make.

  I didn't change my expectations or my support of that person. So I just kept expecting they should know how to do it. But I didn't help them understand how to do it better. So here's what I should have done.

   Let's say you have someone on your [00:01:00] team who's supposed to deliver a project plan for a project they have, but they've never done a project plan.

   It's become clear they don't know how to do it. The task still needs to get done, and in the future, you want them to be able to do this. So now is your opportunity to bring that person alongside you and say, you know what? Let's do this first one together.

  Let me show you what I'm looking for. Let me help you with a template and then give them tasks inside of that so they can learn how to do it. But you are still guiding them through the process and then every subsequent time after that they can take on more and more and more.

  It didn't do me any good back in the day to just wish that someone was better without helping them and it doesn't do you any good either.

  This is a surefire way to make sure that the person knows what's expected, knows exactly how you want it done, and you can help them develop the skills to get there.