A Direct Report Wants Your Job? Congratulations!
Don’t tell anyone, but a senior level manager recently told me that she heard from a very reliable source that one of her direct reports wanted her job.
I told her that it was her responsibility to help him get it.
Isn’t that career suicide?
Think about it. If you developed the reputation as a manager who effectively develops employees to reach their own potential and career goals, people would flock from everywhere to work for you.
And what kinds of people do you think you would attract?
But I don’t want to end up on the street
Of course, this is only a good strategy if you have developed your own career. If you haven’t, then maybe you want to surround yourself with unmotivated, passive people whose single career goal is to leave work on time. You won’t accomplish much, but hunker down and maybe no one will notice for a while.
If you haven’t done so already, a great first step is to ask your directs where they see their career in five years. Help them get there and you will notice an immediate difference in their enthusiasm, motivation, and quality of work.
And when you develop the luxury of delegating your work to your team, you free up your own time to take on your manager’s responsibilities.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
