Last time, we highlighted support and challenge as the yin and yang of leadership. There are many more yin and yangs to leadership. Paradoxes if you like. Or polarities. Whatever you call them, we need to balance them. Each post in this series will cover one of the pairings:
- Task focus and Relationship focus
- Vulnerability and Strength
- Give and Receive
- Advocacy and Inquiry
- Hold accountable and Trust
- Informal communication and Formal communication
- Unified team and Diverse individuals
- Flexible schedule and Structured schedule
- Strategy and Operations
We’ll start with task and relationship
As a leader, whether you are working virtually or face-to-face, your seniors will be expecting you and your team to deliver on a set of outcomes. As an individual contributor, managing your time so that you could deliver your objectives was your major focus. And you would have been rewarded for that. So it’s really tempting to stick with this task focus. Getting things done runs through your veins.
Getting things done continues to be important when you are a leader. But now it’s getting things done through others, not all by yourself. You have much more leverage if you use the people around you. It’s so very tempting to continue to do as much as you can yourself. You trust yourself to get it done to your standard. But you’ll reach burnout in no time with this strategy.
So you need to pivot towards delegating.
This is where the task focus gets tricky.
First off, you think it’s quicker just to do it yourself rather than explain it to someone else. That’s true if it’s a one-off task, but if it is a recurring task that is within or close to the capability of someone else on the team, you need to teach them to take it on, thus freeing up your time to lead.
You also need to trust that others really could do it as well as you and that alternative approaches might actually get a better result.
The major problem with delegating is your communication. People fail if you fail to set them up for success in the first place. If you communicate well, then your trust will be repaid. If you communicate badly, you will prove your lack of trust to be correct!!
So what do you need to communicate when you delegate?
- The outcome that is needed
- The deadline and any milestones and dependencies within that
- The context, and where this fits into the business strategy
- Any barriers to success
- Resources that are required
- Any tools that are available
- People who might be affected
- How and when you agree to be kept informed of progress
Be honest with yourself. How clear are you when you delegate? How many of these aspects do you cover – or not? If you are missing some of them, that’s why delegation hasn’t worked for you in the past.
If you want more help with delegation, take a look at this job aid.
As a result of delegating, what tasks can you now take on that are commensurate with your pay-grade rather than the one (or two) below? We’ll look at how you can be more strategic in a future post, but for now, think about those things you have been wanting to do for some time but just haven’t been able to get to because you have been focused on tasks that your team can now take on.
You might be thinking, that’s all very well, but how do you delegate when you are not co-located?
The same way. With good, clear communication and structure to your regular check-ins. Checking-in is not the same as micro-managing. Checking in involves questions like:
- Last time we met, you said you planned to do X. How is that going? [Congratulate them on any progress, no matter how small]
- What challenges are you facing?
- What are the risks? How are you planning to resolve those?
- How can I help you? [This is not about doing it for them, but freeing up resources]
- What actions will you take next week to move this forward?
- What are you learning?
You’ll notice these are questions not statements. You are attempting to get them to think things through for themselves rather than solving everything for them. There may be some data that they are unaware of, in which case, fill them in on that; but if there is not one right way to go about this task, challenge them to become independent, critical thinkers.
That’s the task side of the equation. Getting stuff done – through others – by delegating, checking in and providing feedback.
Your mindset shift here is to believe that…..the way to grow the team (and myself) and to increase our productivity is to delegate. In delegating, I provide people with the responsibility and authority to do the job. I am accountable for the overall job and I delegate everything in their scope of responsibility. My team members are competent and able to do their jobs.
Now let’s look at the relationship side
Why spend time building relationships with your team members? Because they are human beings, not human doings. If you focus only on task, you are treating them as human doings. After a while, they will grow weary of this and look for a leader who sees them and treats them as human beings.
People need to feel a sense of connection. Personal bonds lead to more loyalty, more focus, getting more done. Relationship alone will not get you results, but relationship balanced with a task focus will. People first, productivity will follow.
That means that you cannot leave relationship building until after the work is done. You will never get to the bottom of your to-do list, no matter how good your intentions are. Bring connecting with your people higher up your to-do list, so that it does get done. Not in a tick-list kind of way though…it must be authentic.
Again, you may be wondering how to create connection virtually. It takes more conscious effort, certainly, but it can be done. They are out of sight, out of mind. So bring them back to mind and back into sight, through more regular touch-points. These don’t have to be full-blown hour conversations. Short and sweet connections. Asking how they are (really). Telling them how you are (really). (We’ll come back to being vulnerable in a future post).
As a reminder from a previous post, last July, I wrote this:
Building a sense of belonging involves:
- Eliminating “outsiderness” – everyone needs to feel that they are included
- Ensuring that everyone includes everyone else and allows others’ voices to be heard
- Modelling and encouraging care for each other
- Stopping -isms in their track (racism, sexism, ageism etc). Do not allow it to flourish behind people’s backs
Building connection involves:
- Seeing each other as humans first
- Asking questions that elicit stories for greater connection. We’ve been able to see into each others’ lives through Zoom and MS Teams etc, so let’s keep that up
- Listening! Don’t underestimate the power of silence
- Smiling (that one’s easy!!)
- Differences of opinion, dialogue, debate
- Creating screen-free time for all, so that you can re-charge
“Having strong connections at work is one of the greatest predictors of happiness, success, and health, which makes it an outstanding investment of time and resources” says Shawn Achor, a Harvard researcher.
Building engagement involves:
- Asking what motivates them and adapting the way you work with them to meet those needs in small or large ways. One size does not fit all
- Helping people to prioritise to meet the new measures of success
- Appreciating people for progress (any progress is good progress)
- Appreciating who they are being, not just what they are achieving.
- Being clear about new measures of success
And this last one brings us right back round to the task focus.
So there you have it, the yin and yang of task and relationship. Both/and, not either/or.
Next time, the yin and yang of vulnerability and strength. Let us know in the comments how you get on with balancing task and relationship over the next couple of weeks – or any questions or concerns you have about it.
