Thursday, December 01, 2005
Training And Leadership
Mark Daniels has been writing a series of posts lately on leadership. I really enjoyed this one.
The first is the question of knowing when to train. Too many times I have trained people that already knew and therefore made them think I thought they were somehow dumb. Too many times I have failed to train people that I assumed knew what they were doing only to have the fall on their face, afraid to ask for help because they thought I expected them to know how to do something. Assessing the the necessity and level of training is a huge issue in leadership.
I especially have this problem in church. I am obviously a little better trained than the average PCUSA elder - because of prior experience as an elder and because of my seminary training. Too many times, I have been forced to participate in training situations that served only to bore me and waste time that I could use to much better ends, actually doing the job. But if they don't insist that I do, I appear singled out somehow. Heck of a problem isn't it.
The other issue that I think Mark overlooks is that a leader, in addition to training, is to allow to give those being trained the freedom to fail, not just make a mistake, but fail, for failure is the greatest teacher. This takes the frustration of it being "easier to do myself" to whole new levels.
Personally, my best leadership is in situations where there is so much going on that I don't have the time to pay much attention to the failures of those "under" me - I just have to keep things moving. It's the smaller leadership situations that make me nuts.
Which I think is a real key to leadership -- the idea is to multiple your efforts. If you have enough time and energy to "do it yourself" then you are not leading enough stuff. Get another project.
Leaders must accept the temporary inefficiency represented by seemingly lost time spent training others in order to insure the long-term health of their organizations.Mark has a great point here, but I think there are a few things he leaves out.
This has been one of the most difficult lessons for me to learn as a leader. (And some days I almost remember it!)
Many, if not most tasks that leaders might assign others to do will be ones that they can perform better and more quickly. But unless the leader takes the time to train others, the leader won't be freed to do other things, things that will help their organization thrive and grow.
In volunteer organizations, like PTAs, youth service agencies, and churches, taking the time to train others to do things expands the base of ownership in the mission of the organization and it increases the overall capacity of the organization to fulfill its mission. People feel more a part of things when leaders trust them to do things...even to be slow or to make mistakes!
The first is the question of knowing when to train. Too many times I have trained people that already knew and therefore made them think I thought they were somehow dumb. Too many times I have failed to train people that I assumed knew what they were doing only to have the fall on their face, afraid to ask for help because they thought I expected them to know how to do something. Assessing the the necessity and level of training is a huge issue in leadership.
I especially have this problem in church. I am obviously a little better trained than the average PCUSA elder - because of prior experience as an elder and because of my seminary training. Too many times, I have been forced to participate in training situations that served only to bore me and waste time that I could use to much better ends, actually doing the job. But if they don't insist that I do, I appear singled out somehow. Heck of a problem isn't it.
The other issue that I think Mark overlooks is that a leader, in addition to training, is to allow to give those being trained the freedom to fail, not just make a mistake, but fail, for failure is the greatest teacher. This takes the frustration of it being "easier to do myself" to whole new levels.
Personally, my best leadership is in situations where there is so much going on that I don't have the time to pay much attention to the failures of those "under" me - I just have to keep things moving. It's the smaller leadership situations that make me nuts.
Which I think is a real key to leadership -- the idea is to multiple your efforts. If you have enough time and energy to "do it yourself" then you are not leading enough stuff. Get another project.
