Leaders, How You Guide Your Team is How You’ll Play
By Marney Andes
Leaving: A Team That Can Do Without Me
Why on earth did I leave my team?
It was the best team I’ve ever worked with.
It was the team I was most proud of building.
But the thing is, sometimes, leaders want to get their hands dirty.
At the start of my past job, I wrote down three things that I wanted to achieve during my time there. It was on a little sticky note that traveled to the inside front page of any given notebook or planner I was using at the time.
It said the following:
Design and deliver programs that build an incredible foundation for the organization.
Communicate the vision of our mission so we can establish clarity and excitement for people inside of the organization.
Build relationships with key stakeholders and leaders so this work can keep going.
Every day, I’d look at this list to see if what I was going was driving our team closer and closer towards this mission.
And if it was, how I could continue this happening… without me.
Many leaders ask themselves how they build a team who can do something along the lines of my “sticky-note” goals. But fewer leaders ask themselves how they can build something that can work without them needing to be there.
That’s my mission-- maybe the one that’s less common. To teach others to do work themselves so they don’t need my job position anymore. Sounds a bit counterproductive on my end, but it’s the only way I know how to lead, play, and compete.
On January 1st, 2021, I looked at that sticky note again, going into my third year of my time at my job, and I decided right then and there: “my team is ready for me to move on. I need more.”
---
“Succession planning” is something you might hear a lot from leaders. “If I were to vacate my position, who could replace me most effectively? And how quickly would they be ready to take on my role?
Sure, that’s a logistical move. But does it help the team in the long-run?
What I’d really love to see from leaders is: “If I were to vacate my position, how have I prepared this team to run without me?
When you have a leader who cares about the good of the community (see Lesson 8 in my book for more), you have a leader that’s preparing their team for success beyond their time there. You see a leader who knows that they can get plucked out of the equation and still have their team do their best work.
Leaving my team was placing my trust in them to continue their operations on their own.
My intention for leaving wasn’t taking something away from them; but instead, giving them the ability to apply what they learned without me, and ultimately, for them to lead it forward, in whatever direction they deemed best.
Learning: Surrounding Yourself With the Best
If you understand the concept that you can have an entrepreneurial spirit without being an “entrepreneur” in the traditional sense, then you know what I mean when I say that in order for me to understand the idea of creating a teammate experience, I need to keep learning.
For me, a lot of people saw right through it: my former Chief People Officer had moved to this new company, and I wanted to follow her.
Why?
Not just to be around familiar colleagues, although that’s a perk.
But because I love learning from her. I love the people she surrounds herself with. I knew that if I was going to start learning more, I wanted to be around people like her, her team, and other leaders she was working with.
The team is also different; it’s a smaller company, but a health care environment, with its own unique challenges and opportunities.
As I reflected on Lesson 8 from my book, which is “What Have You Done for the Good of the Community Today?”, I kept seeing that I needed to learn and grow more in order to continue making a difference in my industry but to also continue growing as a leader.
--
Lead by Lifting
Leading goes into the unknown.
You know what you might be leaving behind, and you know what you’ll probably learn. But the leading piece when you’re starting something new is yet to be determined.
Can you do it again? Can you replicate the work you’re most proud of? Can you lead a team not to fix them, but to enhance them and create an outstanding environment with them?
Well, that’s where sometimes, people fall flat. They want to know more than their team. They want to have an edge over others, because why else would they be hired?
But here’s the thing:
Making your team play better makes you better, too. You’re not neglecting yourself just because you’re focusing on somebody else. You’re doing yourself a service by thinking of others.
Because once you start creating opportunities, learning moments, and challenges for others, you’re giving that right back to yourself. (Ever heard “what goes around comes around?”)
In order to excel, you need people around you to do better.
Jennifer Bradley, who was my roommate at the national Mrs. America competition told me once, “I know part of the reason I made Top 6 is because you kept pumping me up.”
And I answered her with, “Yeah, I needed you to be better so I could be better.”
It’s a simple concept, but I see envy, jealousy, and competition all the time in the workplace, in pageants, in sports, in school completely overshadow people’s ability to just do damn good work.
That’s why I’m sick of seeing leaders try to show others who’s boss. Trying to ensure their place in the company is safe.
Because if people around you are better than you, you’ll be able to excel. You just have to trust it.
If you invest in others, you’re investing in yourself, because you’re pushing everyone to do better work. You’re continuing to match everyone’s level. Yes, there is space for everyone to win (don’t let tiny podiums make you think otherwise).
Hear me when I tell you that if you’re a leader, there’s way too much of everything. You need more people rising to the top. There’s space for everybody to win.
---
If you’re in my place: you’ve just started a new position and are looking forward to starting something again, know that you’re being of service when you’re encouraging your team to not need you anymore.
If you’re continuing working in the same leadership position: know that by making your job not necessary to fill after you’ve left, you’re making your team and your company better.
So to all of my fellow leaders:
By making your team play better than you, you’re in fact doing exactly what you were hired to do in the first place.