Small BusinessForum: To Do or Not to Do...That is the Question!
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If you are the owner of or manage in a small business you likely know that it’s not just the buck that stops with you it’s the whole “kit and caboodle.” ( ← Click here and learn something just for fun) One thing is for certain, if anyone is looking out for employee engagement it’s you. But who watches out for your engagement? I do.
Rule #1 for Managing Your Own Engagement (according to me) has been revised as follows:
- Whoever sees it first gets (
to do it)to be accountable for it getting done
“Rules for Managing Your Own Engagement” is the label I have given to a list of guidelines published here previously. I realized today after working with this particular rule for several years that I may have unwittingly been encouraging some people who are more automatically responsible or control oriented to continue to “over own” the situation they see in front of themselves in their workplace. Maybe the title for today’s post should be ‘To Do or to Delegate.’
Whatever the title, the point of this post is that in announcing that you notice something that needs doing in the workplace you implicitly provide yourself with the opportunity to lead. It is not your place in the pecking order that puts you in this position, it’s that you see what needs to be done. Whether you act on the opportunity you have created is a complicated matter and one not to be taken lightly.
There are many forms in which you may announce your observation that something needs to be done, these ways range from total responsibility to complete irresponsibility:
- "I'll take care of it!"
- “I’d really like the opportunity to…”
- “I wonder when someone is going to …”
- “Why doesn’t somebody…”
- “They should..."
- “Can you believe it…?”
Regardless of the posture taken (conscious/unconscious…responsible/irresponsible), when an observation of something needing to be done is made a “leadership choice point” has been established. From this point of leadership many avenues for action are open to select.
One observation I made early in my business ownership experience that led to a flawed leadership choice went something like this; “Since I own the business I should be the one who manages it.” I say flawed choice but honestly I am sometimes so automatically responsible (I even clean up at Starbucks when people spill the cream and sugar!) that it was really like there was no choice, “I see therefore I do.” An exaggerated sense of responsibility has it limitations. Let’s just say that my talents did not match my observation.
If you are the owner of a business or a manager in someone else’s business you may know exactly what I am referring to here. Have you ever found yourself staying late, doing something poorly and taking a loooong time to do it only to realize later that someone else could have done it much better in far less time? Yeah, you know what I am talking about, doing driven by an exaggerated sense of responsibility.
- But are there times when you as observer might want to be the doer? You doing what you see needs doing may be the best choice, when it makes a point or sets an example.
In his most recent newsletter titled “Authentic Leaders Roll Up Their Sleeves” my friend and author Richard Hadden makes the case for a leader doing what he/she sees needs to get done much better than I can. Richard had this to say on December 1…
"Good leaders know what they're good at, and leverage their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses by delegating. But sometimes, as the Biblical expression goes, when the ox is in the ditch, authentic leaders roll up their sleeves, pitch in, and, as in the case of the councilmen laborers, take care of business.
They don't stand on ceremony, or worry about whose job it is. They just get it done."
So how will you make your choices in the future, automatically or with an eye towards not just what needs to be done but who is best to do it. I promise that if you choose the latter you’ll benefit more than just yourself.
- What are you planning to do that someone else does better than you?
- What have you been waiting for someone to do and it is time to step up and get it done?
