Most of us want to be the best at what we do for work. We love to put in the many hours it takes to learn our jobs inside and out. Because of our dedication, hard work, and performance, others begin to depend on us.
We become so used to performing at a high level that it starts to affect our work. You see, eventually we have to move up the ladder. This upward movement usually leads to us taking charge of other employees.
Just because we were superstars doesn’t mean that our subordinates will be superstars. As more and more work comes towards our team, we lose control of all the different products and outputs. Our team doesn’t perform as well as we did individually. We become frustrated and swear never to be responsible for other employees again.
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When we retire from the workforce, we do not want to start a business for fear of becoming a leader again. These experiences have scarred us for life, and we never want to lead anyone or have anyone depend on us.
I see this scenario play out so many times throughout my 22-year military career. I see high-flying young Marines excel at individual tasks. However, as they move up, they cannot delegate out of fear of lower quality work. It eventually limits their upwards growth potential.
I love delegating. After 22 years of doing the Marine Corps thing (and still going), it’s now my job to train the new generation. The only way to train them is to let them cook in the fire. But we have to take a phased approach to leadership and delegation.
Many people feel that delegation is just telling others what to do and expecting them to get it done. Actually, it is the exact opposite of that. Delegation is knowing what to do precisely and explaining to someone exactly how to get it done.
Leadership is knowing your people well enough to predict the level of description that they will need to accomplish the mission. Some people can achieve success from a couple of sentences; others need huge manuals—it’s your job as a leader to learn your people.
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Why am I talking about delegation today? Because if we are to take advantage of the magic of an automated business, we will have to delegate our duties to others. Delegation is the first step to an overall strategy of removing ourselves from the equation of a business. We just want to collect the checks.
Delegation plays an important role in building our employees up to become leaders themselves. Our goal as leaders is to be force multipliers. A force multiplier can reproduce themselves as many times as they want. Once they create a doppelganger, the force multiple (you) can move on to bigger and better tasks (or retirement).
Creating a version of yourself starts with small tasks like attend this meeting in your place, take this phone call, or send this email. Then it grows to making decisions for us, creating strategies, and running teams. We have to build trust and confidence in our people.
America tells us to keep all of our hard work and success to ourselves. We need to hoard all the information and experience—keeping everyone else in the dark ensures we keep our jobs and gives us that false feeling of security.
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I have seen plenty of people go their whole careers without passing any knowledge to anyone. But guess what, they will be working until age 70. Once you learn the flow of delegating, leadership, and team-building, you will indeed be an invaluable member of an organization.
One day you will be leading your organization. You will be able to step down from the senior billet and keep those automated business paychecks. Jeff Bezos just stepped down as CEO of Amazon; I am sure he trained his replacement very well.
A lot goes into being a leader, and a lot of this may not make sense to you. I haven’t read any civilian books on leadership, only the military books over the years. In the Marine Corps, we build leaders. We ingrain it in how we operate. So, I guess I take it for granted that not everyone has the same experiences as me.
Since I don’t have a book to recommend (which I usually do), I will refer you to articles I wrote on military life. The Military Success 101 series (101, 102, 103, 104, 105) is just as valuable to civilians. The things that make you successful in the military will also make you successful in the civilian world.
The main idea is to become the CEO of Yourself before you get out in front of others. Your employees watch everything you do, so you must be the best version of yourself at all times.
The ultimate goal is to create as many copies of ourselves and spread them throughout the organization. We don’t want to have to delegate everything; eventually, we want them to move autonomously.
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Even if we do not want to become CEO of our own company, we may want to open a family business. Still, the same rules apply. We cannot attempt to do everything ourselves—we need as much help as possible to grow our business.
The book “Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant” details people who cannot delegate tasks. They end up being self-employed, not running a business. That means that they created themselves a job where they are the star player, all day, every day.
Think about doctors and dentists who have their own practices. They are the stars, and they are working hard every day. They can’t delegate their medical talks to anyone. They are trapped in their own version of prison.
When it is time to sell their business, they can’t. When they retire, the company dies with them. They can sell the building to the next doctor or dentist. This scenario is not what we want for ourselves.
We do not want to be the star player. Once we get things flowing correctly, we want to build up the best workers to take over for us. Yes, they will make mistakes, but they will grow from them. A perfectionist mindset is a limiting belief, not an asset—work on overcoming these traits.
I know this may be a lot to take in, so let it sink in for now. I will continue to bring you more content from the world of leadership. These topics are essential as we plan our escape to the laptop life we dream of daily.
The following article on leadership will be on the 11 leadership principles that the Marine Corps instills in us at a very young age. The more I read them, the more valuable they become. If you know you lack leadership, start working on overcoming your weaknesses. Stay tuned for more on leadership. Enjoy and Happy Investing.
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