Less do-ing and more leading.
A first hand experience on the tension of letting go of your expertise in order to properly lead your teams.
Here’s what is going on behind the scenes this week as a leadership team coach and advisor.
Advising a frustrated CEO on how to address the legacy folks and the attitudes they bring to their senior leadership team. They didn’t like either answer I put forward. Can you guess what they were?
Facilitated a strategy session with a CEO going through a big growth phase. We’ve been working together for years and it’s been a joy to watch the transformation in both themselves and the team. This strategy session was all around how they need to shift their leadership to 10x the growth!
Working with a CTO on how they can start to shift their team mindsets to embrace a more experimental and visionary approach to AI and the impact it will have on their business.
Anything here you’d like me to write about or unpack? Let me know.
Meanwhile, I’m doing my best to shift more into a CEO role at OverTime Leader, so that I can start really growing the business. This feels like I am about to sign up to two full time jobs, but I know the hard work will be worth it on the other side.
Leaning into leadership.
My coach really challenges me this week on what and why I am struggling to let go. I found myself sounding a lot like my clients, when they are struggling to lean into leadership.
Here’s what happens (or at least here’s what is happening to me).
Conceptually I know what I need to do to grow the team and the business. I need to do less client delivery work so that I can work “on” the business, not “in” the business.
I also rationally know that there are many amazing and talented people to hire to won “in” the business, yet I am the only on that can properly take on the CEO role. The vision of my own company, the partnerships, the inspiration is not something I should delegate.
I feel stuck and frustrated that I’m not able to make this shift. I can see so clearly where I want us to go, can see a way through to get there, but annoyed it’s not happening faster.
Because, letting go is hard.
Although I can feel I’ve outgrown the work and it’s time to evolve, letting go of my “expertise”, and maybe even in some ways my identity, comes with a lot of fear.
There’s a sense of emptiness on the other side. “What will I do?” “Will I become obsolete?”
There’s a sense of losing control that feels deeply uncomfortable but yet very much necessary.
In practice.
Playing back a recent experience where a VP of Engineering shares his frustrations on what happens when a leadership team is full of great “do-ers” but not great leaders.
Let. It. Go.
I can tell you first hand, this is easier said that done. But you and I both know it’s what you need to do. So how do we do it.
To be a leader of the business, you’re role is to focus on:
The Strategy. The role your team has within the wider context and most importantly connecting the dots to other teams. Being at the helm with a clear head allows you to think through what’s around the next corner.
The Dynamics. Getting your teams to work as a high-performing teams within themselves and their peers. Giving feedback, raising the bar and challenging the team so they can stretch beyond their own potential.
The Vision. Your words have weight. Driving inspiration and motivation through consistent, engaging and frequent internal comms.
The Board (Stakeholders). We often under-utilise our board. They are networked, experienced and incentivised to help you. Reach out beyond the regular meetings and involve them in helping you come up with solutions to your biggest problems.
The Market. In my opinion, most leaders spend way too much time in the business and not externally connecting with partners, finding talent, and understanding the market movements.
The Team. The more your business / team grows, the more you need to lift yourself out and evolve your role. That means you are constantly succession planning. A combination of prepping internal folks to step up as well as attracting and headhunting great external people to step in. Great hiring takes time, and yes takes you away from “doing”, but focus on what will serve the end goal.
If not you, then who?
Appreciate this is much easier said than done as I am literally living this experience.
So what can we do about it?
Stop answering the “stupid” questions. It feels good to have the answer, and feels nice to be asked. But the more we answer questions our teams have the capability of answering (yes, it may take the a bit more time the first time around) the better they will be in the long run. Love this post around how to step out so your team can step in.
The action I took away from my coaching session was to write our the job description of the role I need to take on next. As I started thinking about all the things I would be doing, I got super excited and motivated to get going.
You can’t delegate everything in one swoop, so focus on removing your tasks bit by bit. I started adding a labels on my to do list. Anything I technically “didn’t have to do” or could be done by someone else with the right training, got a label. It helped me visually see the tasks that needed to be delegated now, vs where I needed to shape a proper handover or where I needed a hire.
Leadership feels empty and unfulfilling.
Letting going of the “doing” will start to feel right and you will feel ready. idea of doing what I’ve been doing for a few more years filled me with dread, so sometimes we just need to check-in with ourselves, see where the ego is playing up, and have a quick reframe.
You got this.
As an expert in ‘organizational chaos’ I specialise in team alignment, change management, org design, culture+strategy and leadership team performance.
Reach out if you’d ever like to ask for advice or would like to collaborate.