Chapter 25. Stop doing their work
Chances are you were put into a leadership position because you were good at your previous job. Continuing this behavior as the leader, however, is a dereliction of your current responsibilities. In other words, this means you aren’t focusing on learning and growing in your current position. In addition, you’re taking away opportunities for your team to learn and grow in their positions. Worst of all, you’re actively building a team that has an absence of trust, a lack of accountability, and low commitment to their responsibilities.
I was promoted as lead developer of a team I had been a developer on from day one. I helped build the system from the ground up and had intimate knowledge of its more complicated and critical subsystems. This worked well when my job was to build the system.
I quickly identified what needed to happen. I understood the history of the way the system was built (within reach if not within my head), and deciding direction and impact came without much effort. The team of 4 grew to a team of 30 (over the course of a year or so), and then, shortly after, I was promoted.