Do we Loose a "Key Resource" in a "Good Leader"?

“Ask him he will know this”, “I don’t know the technical stuff”, “let me get someone to help you” are few of the replies that we get when we ask some work (technical) stuff to our managers. With all due respect, most of them have double figure years of experience. If we have to categorize this experience then I am sure it won’t be for only scolding or mail writing or analyzing, it’ll be definitely as useful as ours, as I am sure no organization hires a person straight from the college as a manager. Then what happened? Where this hard work did went? Here are some reasons that can impact a person’s journey from an individual contributor to a no contributor aka leader or manager.

Added Responsibilities: ASA you step into a managerial role you officially become responsible for someone and when I say officially it means “on paper”, reporting to you. So, that person kinda becomes your baby, your action directly impacts him and his yours, hate him like him but can’t ignore him. That means you can’t use excuses like “Will tell you later”, “Let’s see tomorrow” because you know, today ,tomorrow, next week or next century  its only you who have to solve the puzzle and face the fire.

Your Interest:  Let’s face it our interest literally defines our journey and ultimately our destination. Right from the beginning of our career we fight for good work whether in term of technology or domain. Sometimes we literally have to produce work in order to keep our interest alive. But here is the question is it literally the interest or just the peer pressure? We really want to do it or we just do because it’s in demand or our friend is doing it. If later is the case then asa you get comfortable with your position, you’ll stop looking for quality and eventually you’ll succumb to just survival.

Survival to the fittest: With just our own work in hands one can control the flow of work, with some extended work hours, good communication situation can get managed and eventually the problems too (at least up to an extent). But with added names in the list, there is definitely going to be more inflow holes, to manage the flow from that can lead to leakage and sometime water logging too. While putting efforts for as basic as keeping one and family dry on a leader can rarely think of swimming, after all its basic human nature. First, the added responsibility that eventually leads to time crunch and turns you to reserve mode.  Ultimately, we adapt to the surrounding and change our interest.

The role boundaries : Sometimes we constraint ourselves to our role boundaries, an SE will only work for coding, SE2 will review and manager will delegate after all who wants extra headache with same money. Company is not paying me for this, I am not responsible for counter cleaning, I am off the hook boss, its your boat you have to row it are some of the responses we get, and frankly these are all practical reasons. So, here is the reality A) everyone should be responsible for their work but the thing is B) Even its not his work he’s also working for the organization C) If you are his manager/Lead ethically you should be helping him. Now the question is, firstly, “Do you really want to help (not some other person under you” .Secondly, if you can really help? If yes, then great otherwise we’ll get the same reply “Let me see if someone can help you “!

We all need more than motivation, delegation,outside help from our leaders...

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