Keep yourself on the straight and narrow
Self Improvement
Bad habit of doing the wrong work? Worried you might slip?
The best way to stop yourself falling into the trap of doing your team’s work is to know what will trigger you get too involved in the first place. What sort of situation would suck you in? The most common triggers are high pressure situations - tight deadlines, busy periods, times when things are in the middle of going wrong - and work that you are confident you know how to pull off by yourself.
Next, ask yourself, “what will I do to stop myself when this next happens?” How will you recognise that you’re falling into bad habits? * Could you enlist your boss, your team, or someone else to keep an eye on you and tell you when you’re doing the wrong thing? * Would a weekly moment of self-reflection help you catch yourself?
When you find yourself doing the wrong thing, stop and reset. As a leader you have other levers to pull to solve problems - training, motivation, resourcing, hiring, spending etc. Think about how you can best deploy those options to solve your team’s problem instead.
When to take this action
This action is from 'Do the right work, not the easy work' and should be used when you're not sure what to do, when you're a new manager, when you're stressed, when your team is under pressure
Need something else?
In your personal development time
Do your job, not your team's
Are you doing the easy work, instead of the right work?
In your one-to-ones
Help me, help you
Your team will surely know if you have the bad habit of doing their job for them. Ask them to help you stop, and tell them how.
In your one-to-ones
Stop yourself being sucked in
Team needs your help? Resist the urge to get your hands dirty.
With your boss
Create accountability
Ask your boss to hold you accountable. What behaviours or bad habits should they be calling you out on?