Some people seem to suffer from serial career challenges. Not just nuisance issues or problems related to every business working with fewer people and more to do. No, these career challenges come in the form of never being able to get things done effectively, and being surrounded by team members who don’t apparently seem to cooperate, contribute, or carry their own weight. And typically the same issues follow these individuals from job to job.
If this scenario sounds like someone you know (or even sound like you), it could very well be the person in question simply can’t get out of their own way and allow other talented people to help them achieve success.
Signs There Are Career Challenges with Letting Talented People Help You
There may be several signs someone has a problem letting talent people among their team provide meaningful assistance. These include:
- Higher than typical churn among team members and / or staff
- A personal sense of having too much work to do
- An ongoing challenge in meeting important objectives
- Self-frustration with having to handle too many details to be able to get projects completed
- An inability to effectively involve others in key projects to move them ahead
If a few of these signs are familiar, it’s smart to try (or to impose) corrective actions to fix the ongoing career challenges.
8 Ways to Let Talented People Help You
Here are eight behaviors to address, all of which can let others help a boss or team leader be more effective. If you’re the person looking to improve on your career challenges, focus on:
- Pinpointing areas where you have weaknesses and identifying who on your team is stronger and can compensate for your personal weaknesses
- Making sure to simply state project objectives without telling / showing others HOW the effort should be accomplished
- Making sure you are hitting your own deadlines and not causing undue delay to others by delaying project decisions or natural delegation points
- Providing others background on how you make decisions and judge performance to allow them to act without having to constantly check with you or have their work closely supervised
- Allowing people who have demonstrated appropriate responsibility and ownership to take on more leadership
- Being open to listening to ideas from others and then responding quickly and clearly when your team seeks input
- Sharing your input when it’s needed and there is still time to act, but then forever holding your peace
- Sticking with the decisions you make so others have the latitude to act on them
These behaviors can lead to those you work with being able to use their own talents and meaningfully contribute instead of being in the frustrating position of order taking and / or being continually second guessed. While improving in these areas requires determination, as one improves, there are tremendous benefits from suddenly finding there ARE people around who are freed up to perform better for all involved. - Mike Brown
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.
