More Yoda, Less Superhero

 

The individual contributor vs. the people leader

As a manager, you really have two jobs. You’re an individual contributor. You are doing your work, whether it's in engineering, sales, marketing, operations, service, or finance. It's wherever you have some expertise, where you have some skill AND you're also a leader of other people.

The skills for a people leader are very different from an individual contributor because now you have to get your direct reports talents, strengths, and a better version of self out of them. We've  built up that muscle of being good as an individual contributor. However, only a few of us have invested in the training and practice necessary to excel at the other part—the soft skills required to unleash the talents of others.

So we default to the individual contributor because that's the one we know. But you must be able to do both.

Yoda and the superhero

More Yoda, less Superman. There's this powerful superhero archetype in the world that we know, and that's the individual contributor. We get things done. We move forward. We do whatever needs to be done. It doesn't matter how many hours we must put in, doesn't matter how many fires there are, I'm going to put them out. 

Why? Because that's how I've established credibility with myself and others over the course of my life. I’ve known myself to be is that kind of superhero personality. But now I need to shift and I've got to bring out the talents and skills of others.

So that's where we draw on Yoda and the infinite wisdom of this character that most of us know about.  Yoda was much more about asking questions, creating space for growth and creating spaces of discomfort for his students where they had to challenge themselves to become that next better version of self.

Yoda didn't give Luke all the answers. Yoda didn't hold Luke’s hand through every step of the process. And that's the critical difference to go from that superhero mindset, not to let go of it, you need it sometimes, but we need a lot more Yoda in the workplace.

I’m not saying all Yoda, no superhero. I said more Yoda, less superhero, and finding that balance and using tools like the Accountability Dial to start to transfer accountability and open those spaces for growth.

That's the exciting part of the journey.

Start tracking your superhero

So how do you know if you're being Superman or Superwoman for the people on your team? What specifically does it look and sound like?

• You’re sitting in a lot of meetings that you feel someone else should be running that meeting.
• You’re hitting reply all and a lot of email threads thinking, well shouldn't that be that person's job?
• Your staff are asking you for a lot of help on a lot of little things, checking in with you, asking for what I'd call micro-approvals. Is this okay? Is that, okay, can I do this? Can I do that?

If these are the things that you're seeing, if you find yourself finishing off other people's work, if you're getting work from your team then you're in superhero mode.

Developing a Yoda mindset

If you want to make the shift, if you want to get better at balancing being an individual contributor and developing the talents of others using this idea of more Yoda, less superhero is a start because it's a mindset.

It’s the internal state as you're approaching meetings, as you're approaching conversations and especially as you're approaching your one-on-ones, your orientation is going to be much more around asking questions and leaving space for self-reflection. And the primary tool that you have for doing that is The Accountability dial.

The Accountability Dial will help you locate where you are in this conversation. You’re going to start as many moments as you can with the Yoda orientation by asking questions and holding the space to create productive discomfort to help your people grow.

The Accountability Dial is a map to help you figure out where you are and it's going to help you stay in the Yoda seat as you have coaching conversations with your team and others.

 Click here to read a post about the Accountability Dial. Transform Empty Accountability into Real Accountability.

Click here to read a related post titled: Leaders Who Ask More Leverage the Power of the Brain to Ignite Employee Ownership

To your greater success and well-being,

 

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

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