Image credit: Alex J White, reused under CC license
There is no such thing as a decision by committee. As the workload grows, however, there will be more than one person involved in running your organisation. Job descriptions will be drafted, and “territories” created. As they grow, people sometimes restrict themselves to their territories, for fear of not doing what they ought; or for fear of hurting the feelings of others; or simply, out of plain laziness.
If you are working in a team,
- firstly, do the task you were assigned. If nobody does, then some jobs just won’t get done!
- take initiative.
- if you feel it is someone else’s role, let them know about your initiative. If it is something that can’t be cancelled, give them some time to veto it.
- if it is an unassigned job, get started. Try and involve as many people from your team in this, but do not wait too long because you can’t arrange a meeting.
- be humble. Just because you can go over someone else’s territory, it doesn’t give you authority over it. You can lead people there, but will always have to submit to the person who was in charge of it.
- be loving. Do overstep your boundaries to lighten your friends’ loads. Let that be your motivation – not a desire to take their place permanently. Do not try to outshine them.
- be welcoming. Allow others to come onto your turf too. Invite them, even, when you feel you need to.
Are you comfortable going over other people’s turfs?
What do you do to make sure the people you lead feel comfortable stepping on other people’s turfs?
