I’ll Just Do It Myself

“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.” ~ Andrew Carnegie

Leaders often fall into the ‘I’ll just do it myself’ trap - and it is a sticky trap for sure! We often think that we got to our leadership role through our ‘special’ competence, hard work and being willing to do that hard work ourselves. This can lead to our ego believing that we are uniquely talented to do the work of the organization; ‘No one can do it as well as I can.’ And so we decide ‘I’ll just do it myself’.

This thinking reminds me of Marshall Goldsmith's work in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Believing that you can do it better than anyone and/or that you just don’t have time to coach, mentor and train your team to take on this work – it’s a serious constraint and liability for your organization. Jon Hoffman suggests, “Before you are a leader, success is about growing yourself, but when you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” When you do it yourself you miss the opportunity to grow others - in fact you are cheating them out of their opportunity to grow and you are cheating your organization out of the opportunity for deep and wide competency and talent.

If you find yourself thinking or saying ‘but REALLY, I can do it better than anyone else’, you need to flip that around to ‘who in my organization do I need to coach and mentor to grow into this strength/talent?’ My former board was big on saying in my first dozen or so years of leadership - What if you get hit by a bus? While this is a little dark (especially when you hear it repeatedly) it came from a place of understanding that no organization can survive and thrive if its knowledge, talent and competence lies in one individual. Also, it came from a place of care that as a leader trying to ‘do it all myself’ I was on a tough road to burnout.

Without your self-reflection and awareness, your ‘I can do it myself’ can become a limitation and a liability.

How about you? Have you been falling into the ‘I just don’t have the time’ to coach/build others knowledge/talent? What small actions can you begin to take to let go and give more (with coaching and support) to other in your organization?

“Self leadership is about awareness, tolerance, and not letting your own natural tendencies limit your potential.” ~ Scott Belsky