Help at the Bottom
Something the best leaders do. But most don't.
Hey friend
Welcome to 200 Word Tuesdays. Where we give you short, actionable ideas to implement in your project management. We promise that you haven’t heard these powerful ideas anywhere else. Let’s get started.
Leaders are called to spend most of their time working on high level tasks.
It’s part of the gift to experience to be skilled enough to make decisions that affect the group.
But that calling often means that we spend very little time working at the bottom.
At the entry-level tasks that keep the team running.
However the best leaders know that to make high-level decisions they need to understand the entry-level work almost as well as the team members doing them.
That is why the best leaders “help at the bottom”.
You should aim to spend some time each week with your team doing the tasks that perhaps you haven’t done yourself in years.
You might have forgotten how frustrating it is to do weekly reporting. Or check invoices. Or follow up with community members affected by your project.
And therefore you might not know how frustrating those can be.
Or where you can help make them better.
Helping at the bottom is a great use of your time.
And as a bonus, your team will respect and appreciate you even more.
So try to be useful there in order to be more useful everywhere.
See you next week,
Jonathan (The Effective Project Manager)
