I Cannot Do My Staff’s Job.
This week, while getting my 1.5 year-old ready for another tumultuous daycare drop-off, my favourite morning radio personalities were hosting a discussion – “Could your boss do your job?”.
As you might expect, the responses were quite abrupt and disparaging.
“No, my boss couldn’t do my job. They wouldn’t last 2 hours if they had to reconcile financial reports.”
“Are you kidding me? Sure, they might have done my job 15 years ago but put them in a classroom now and those grade 1 kids would eat them alive.”
“My boss would try to come out and help make coffess, but would just screw up every order. They just get in the way.”
This continued. And it irked me.
Because I’m that boss.
I’m the supervisor that can’t hop on the Zamboni if a staff member didn’t show up, or put on a pair of red shorts to watch the pool to cover a lifeguard’s break. Heck, at 5’2”, 115lbs and noodle arms, I’m not even sure if I could manage a meeting room set up without help.
I’m okay with that. If we are being honest, I actually love it.
At some point, your role as the boss (and I’ll use the term ‘leader’ from here on out), is to critically think, ask the right questions, and get your team pulling in the same direction. You help anticipate issues but leave the day-to-day decisions to the experts unless you have a reason to get into the line of business deeper. Not only does this free up important time for you to work on big picture plans, but doing so expedites trust and connection.
My staff are subject matter experts. They are great at what they do. I am here to serve them: to help them achieve all their goals, to listen to their concerns, and to learn from them about work area issues I can be of some assistance with. (The example I use in recreation is that I don’t scoop poop from a pool, but I know the difference between a liquid and a solid fecal… but that’s another conversation for another time.)
If I get too deep in day-to-day operations, my staff will feel micromanaged or that they have to run everything through me – neither of which is good for morale or innovation or (selfishly) for my own workload.
What do they need? They need to know that I’m there to take up their causes, to advocate (when required) for them, and to help remove barriers from doing their best work.
It doesn’t mean I don’t sit in my office and refuse to come out. In fact, quite the opposite. I head into each work area often to learn more, ask to be shown things, or help out however I can. I try to constantly demonstrate servant leadership and a growth mindset. If I can go to them to say “I don’t know, can you show me how?”, it makes it a hell of a lot easier for them to do the same to me.
Not being the subject matter expert is a natural progression in management in most organizations– at some point, the hierarchy gets to the point where the person at the tippity-top could not (and should not) know the in’s-and-outs of every position below them. It’s up to the leader to acknowledge this, appreciate the strengths others have that they do not, and build a relationship of mutual growth, trust and understanding.
