Page 255 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

240 Just Promoted!

the initiative to identify and solve problems. They will say, “It is his organiza-
tion, all the ideas have to be his, so let the problems, the solutions, and the
consequences be his too.” Arrogant managers end up with all the problems
and all the responsibility because they are cut off from needed information.

Betraying Trust
If an employee comes to you with a request, observation, or confidential infor-
mation, you must honor the request for confidence, even while you feel com-
pelled to initiate some action. Similarly, not trusting experienced and capable
employees undermines their confidence in themselves. “Damn it,” said one
long-time employee to his boss, “I am 52 years old and a graduate engineer
with over 30 years’ experience in the field. I need to feel trusted to do this well.”

Overmanaging: Failing to Delegate or Build a Team
One of Jo Ann’s problems as a manager was that she couldn’t let go, didn’t del-
egate. The decisions she got involved with ranged from the trivial to the sub-
stantive. She selected the computers, the keyboards and screens, decided who
needed training and who didn’t, signed the checks, edited the product descrip-
tions, made the presentations to major customers, and directed all the firm’s
most important projects. She hired, fired, supervised, trained, promoted, and
reorganized. She was her small organization’s leader, accountant, HR profes-
sional, trainer, purchaser, head of the support staff, and supervisor of build-
ings and maintenance. Jo Ann did it all, and she was exhausted, angry, and
resentful of the load she was carrying.
And carry it she did—not because others couldn’t take responsibility but
because Jo Ann couldn’t let go of responsibilities to say, “Okay, it’s not the way
I would have done it, but it’s okay.”
In the short term, Jo Ann was making excellent decisions that were help-
ing her organization. But her reluctance to delegate severely constrained her
organization. People were reluctant to make decisions on their own because
they felt they would get a better decision from Jo Ann. As a result, responsi-
bility upon responsibility and decision upon decision, both trivial and signif-
icant, were piled upon her desk. She became a bottleneck to growth, as projects
and decisions awaited her attention. By helping, she was unwittingly sitting on
the organization’s energy, creativity, and competence.