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I Know I Know

Critical to all walks of life is to be aware of the situation around you. If a hunter wasn’t quiet, he’d scare away the animals. If a doctor wasn’t precise, he could kill a patient. If the mechanic wasn’t knowledge, the vehicle wouldn’t work. Knowing your surroundings, understanding the situation and what you should and shouldn’t do is part of the learning experience. It is why you still hear children screaming in church! With all that being said, I have found myself still figuring out when to use my leadership skills in many different situations, both at work and at home. There are four styles or development levels a person can use, but it depends on the development level of the person, much like being aware of your situation. Those four development levels are directing, coaching, supporting and delegating.

So how do I know when and which to use? I don’t! But I’m still learning. For instance, directing is something I would do as a parent. I would need to be direct with my daughter from her birth to around 5 years old because she is still learning how to behave. Now, even though my daughter was 5 going on 15, as her dad, I still needed to be more direct with her by setting goals, plans and rules for her to learn. Without that direction, any poor behavior would be a result of her not having either the competence, confidence or motivation to understand what to do. Now that my daughter just turned 7 this week, I’ve found that I can be more supportive with her. Instead of having to tell her what to do, our relationship is more of a two-way street like coaching. My daughter understands her surroundings much better than when she was younger than 5. Instead of worrying about her walking into traffic, dropping glasses on the floor or putting toothpaste on her own toothbrush, I help build her confidence by motivating her. Once my little girl turns into a bigger girl and is old enough to do most things on her own, I’ll be much more supportive in my role as her father. As she grows, both physically and mentally, I know I will need to listen and encourage her more than I did when I was directing or coaching her. Lastly, when my daughter becomes her own woman and she can make all the decisions for herself, I can delegate tasks to her. At this point in life, I will be ready for retirement and I’ll probably be delegating many long-term financial strategies with her that include what will happen when her mother and I are gone. It’s hard to think that day will come, but I know she won’t be a little girl forever.

At Work Work Work

Much like the situation with my daughter, I use these same styles while I’m at work. I’ve realized that I must continue to be aware of the situations around me and the people I encounter. I’m not going to treat my coworkers the same as the CEO. As a leader at work, I sometimes need to be directive when it comes down to getting work done. A great recent example was when we were submitting a nomination to the FAA and it needed to be accomplished in a very short time. With this being a quick, yet highly important task, I needed to give people assignments to ensure it got completed. If we had time to brainstorm solutions, I would have used a more supportive style. If this was an opportunity to let others provide their expertise in a back-and-forth setting, we could have used more coaching. In the end, I didn’t have time to delegate, which would have empowered the team to just get to done using their skills and little to no oversight from me.

In many occasions, I must be a follower, too, by taking the lead from my boss and let him have the floor to direct the team. He is a smart enough leader to know when he needs to coach me, be supportive or simply delegate because he’s developed trust in me. The one style I know he doesn’t need to use with me is being direct, because I’ve established the knowledge and intelligence to do my job well.

Through My Eyes

I find that I sometimes over use the directive style, mainly because I don’t give people enough credit to be knowledgeable about subjects or topics. I’ve realized that I need to work harder at assessing the situation and people so that I’m using the proper style right from the gate. I think some people have taken my directing as an insult, too. I would probably feel the same way if someone was walking me through task-by-task on something I already understood. Also, I need to assess delegating much more than I do now. It is easy to second guess our decisions, but not so simple in the moment to know if we should have let something go and put trust in other people to get the job done.

Marques Thomey
November 1, 2019

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