Early on in my career I was one of “those” managers. The kind that was hyper-focused on efficiency: getting things done and moving on to the next task. My favorite thing was making a list and then ticking things off. The more ticks I made, the more accomplished I was, and the more successful I felt. My boss praised me because I got so much done.
I had two team members reporting to me. They left work on time every day. They were able to go to lunch. They were not coming in on weekends. How did I know? I was there to see it: working late every day, coming in early, working through lunch, in the office on weekends (I’m um… “more tenured in life,” working remote from home wasn’t an option back then.) Don’t get me wrong. They were absolutely doing everything I asked them to do and were great at it. Well, I thought, that’s part of being a manager, you just have to work harder. You have more work. With the title comes the responsibility and the work. Right?
That was until the company hit hard times and one of my two team members was put on “the list” to be laid off. My stomach sank as I thought of her and how she would take the news. She was more than capable, but had landed on the list because she wasn’t perceived as “busy.” I knew she could do more, but I hadn’t let her. I had not developed her. In my quest for efficiency and speed, I had made our team inefficient and slow. She was doing the same work that she had been doing a year ago, and whose fault was that? Mine. I felt awful that my mistake was going to impact someone on my team. My mind continued to spin, and then it hit home personally, “I can’t let her go. I’ll drown if I don’t have the help. I can’t work any harder!”
The following weekend, I went to the beach and happened to see a Mom trying to teach her son to ride a bicycle. You know how some people have a light bulb go on over their heads when enlightenment hits? I had a ten tier, 100 bulb, crystal behemoth of a chandelier crash down on me right then. What had I been doing all this time? As I watched the two of them work through it, I learned how to be a better manager.
You can’t teach someone to ride a bicycle by riding it for them. You absolutely cannot. They must jump on the bike and do it themselves. Your task is to empower them to do it. You can’t run in front, you have to encourage and push from behind. At first, you help them get their balance and get accustomed to the feel of the bicycle. You have to help hold them up initially until they get their balance.
When they get started you constantly encourage them. “Yes you can!” “That’s right!” “You went a little further this time!” Sometimes you have to be firm in your encouragement: “No, you aren’t giving up.” “Try again.” Then you may return to positive encouragement again as they right themselves: “That’s it! I know you can do this!” When they begin to wobble away and stay up and move on their own, you cheer. You celebrate their success, even if they don’t go too far the first few times. Cheering is a big part of the process. Then, as they finally learn and leave you standing there, and you watch them ride off on their own, you realize that perhaps someday they may even be a better rider than you, and that would be a tremendous achievement, for both of you.
Have you ever tried to teach someone to ride a bicycle? Doesn’t matter who it was: child, niece, cousin, or friend; have you ever had the opportunity to teach someone? If so, you had the opportunity to learn some of the best management lessons and actually put them to use! You’ve gone through the entire management experience: teach, manage, and lead.
As a manager and leader, you can use these same strategies:
- Be patient with people as they learn new things.
- Remember that you cannot learn for them, they must do it themselves.
- Know that they will fall and fail. Just be there to pick them back up and set them right again.
- Let them take the lead and encourage, push and help from behind.
- Coach, encourage, and, when necessary, be firm.
- When they do succeed – cheer and celebrate!
- Stand back and watch them go, and take a moment to celebrate your own success.
When you are developing your team, are you teaching them the skills needed to grow? Are you empowering them? Or in the spirit of trying to be efficient, are you doing it all yourself?
Fortunately, my story ends happily. My team member got to stay on my team and I learned a really valuable lesson and became a better manager and leader because of it. You could even say I got to ride off into the sunset on my own bicycle.
