“So, what shall we do about it?”, Martin asks.
Suddenly, all eyes are on you. It’s a crucial phase of the project. The team is proud as hell of the first prototype. But there are still a lot of things to sort out and quite a few ideas down the road. Martin’s issue is a particularly tricky one. It’s affected by a lot of parameters and, in turn, affects most of the other team members.
You’re the leader and you’re faced with a difficult decision: There are so many things to consider, so many options to choose from, so many paths to follow … but which one should you choose?
It gets worse. Because this is just for Martin’s part. Lisa has basically the same question. Sarah as well. Taylor and Kim, too.
This is when you realise: You’ve made yourself the bottleneck of your team. By overseeing every decision so that the project remains focused on your common goal you’ve basically overwhelmed yourself with decisions, slowed down the team and made yourself the root of quite some frustration in the team.
This is why it’s so important to light the path as a leader. When everyone walks along the same path, in the same direction, towards the same destination, you can trust your team with making the right decisions. For this to work, it’s much more useful to ask them the right questions – rather than pretending to have all the answers.