February 12

If you lead a team of creative pros, I’m sorry to tell you that your entire career has been one giant setup. Early in your career, you are rewarded for getting the work right. For controlling it. For making it whatever it needs to be to please your stakeholders.

Over time, if you do great work, you get promoted. Now, perhaps you are leading others who are responsible for doing the work. However, this is a critical transition point for you. Doing the work and leading the work require entirely different skill sets.

If you continue to attempt to control the work by looking over your team members’ shoulders or by telling them exactly what to do, the capacity of the team will never grow beyond your personal purview. You will need to be involved in every decision, or things won’t get done.

On the other hand, if you focus on developing your team to be able to accomplish the work and on equipping and unleashing them to tackle it, the capacity of your team is unbounded. You will frequently be surprised by what your team is capable of.

As a leader, your job is to lead the work, not to do it.

Are you spending too much of your time doing the work, or are you focused on developing your team to be able to do it?