Monday, January 22, 2018

Accidental Diminisher: Pacesetter

Leaders are supposed to lead. In many ways, they're supposed to be setting the pace, especially in the areas of improvement one's self, the processes, and changing the results. If you keep charging forward, like the Idea Guy, you can wear out your team as they try to keep up with you. What seems important to you is that action is being taken, that something is happening. Maybe you have Activator in your list from StrengthFinder (tm).

You might be the guy who says, "Do this...alright, that didn't work, let's try that..." This not only leads to a reliance on trial-and-error problem-solving and often leads to convoluted procedures and processes as 'fixes' get added and those additions haven't fixed anything. In the meantime, your team just feels like a pit crew: there only to serve the driver and only reacting when you the Pacesetter take a break. It also demoralizes anyone else who does have drive and passion if you insist that you need to outpace them. They'll quit like the cartoonish Wile E. Coyote chasing Road Runner on foot...until your team figures out a way to sabotage you in order to slow you down or some other, external mechanism to keep pace.

Pacesetters need to make space for mistakes, sufficient problem-solving and effective strategic planning. Let someone else set the pace (e.g. make them the project owner). Let the majority control the rate of action; listen to your staff on how much they can handle and if they're ready for the next thing (or are they trying to finish up the last thing you assigned them).

1 comment:

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