The Leadership Trap?

Who do you know that was great at their job, and has struggled after their promotion to leader? Let’s see how Marcus, the engineering manager dealt with this challenge with a little help from the Leadership Wizard.

Marcus the Engineering Manager

Marcus had celebrated his promotion to Engineering Manager nine months ago. He realized that for greater career success he needed to take on a management role and when the opportunity arose, he jumped in with both feet.

Now, six months later Marcus was frazzled and ready to give up. His boss had given him an impossible technical challenge and he was being summoned to the shop floor regularly to troubleshoot problems.

He was disappointed and frustrated with the nine people in his department because he felt their knowledge was inferior to his and their work ethic was weak.

As a result of his beliefs about the capability of his people and his own personal love of solving technical challenges, Marcus responded to every inquiry himself, double checked the work of his people, and often took their projects over himself. The result was stress and fatigue for Marcus and poor morale and attitude for his employees.

Turnover in the department was becoming a problem because employees felt unchallenged and left for better opportunities elsewhere. The turnover created even more problems for Marcus because he now had to worry about training new employees with an already crushing personal workload.

It had reached the breaking point. The General Manager gave Marcus an ultimatum: either become a more effective leader or risk demotion or termination.

The Leadership Wizard’s Solution

Marcus agreed to one on one coaching with the leadership wizard. The General Manager readily agreed to invest in coaching for Marcus because he knew how expensive it was to recruit a replacement. And in fact, the cost of the dysfunctional department and the backlog of work was climbing.

After assessing Marcus’ leadership style, the leadership wizard explained that in order for Marcus to succeed as a leader, he needed to achieve results through his people and let go of some of his work.

Marcus made the following crucial changes immediately:

1. When responding to plant floor problems he brought along a team member with him so that the team member could learn and eventually respond to issues directly without bringing in Marcus.

2. He stopped saying, “Leave it with me,” or “I’ll take care of it,” when people brought him questions or problems. Instead he asked his people to come up with solutions. He offered to coach them which helped them grow and develop and increased their job satisfaction.

3. He stopped fixing the mistakes his people made. He let his people know what his expectations were and that they were responsible for producing error free work. When there were mistakes, instead of just fixing the mistake himself, he gave it back to the person so he could learn from his mistake and prevent it in the first place.

These three actions alone solved 80% of the aggravation Marcus was experiencing.

Who do you know that would benefit from a visit from the Leadership Wizard?

The Leadership Wizard helps both individuals and groups of leaders, managers and supervisors develop the skill sets they need to achieve success and thrive in their leadership role.

The Leadership Wizard is also available by telephone at (866)700-9043 or email info@uniquedevelopment.com.