Leadership Solutions: Can You Answer This Question?

Do you know what your job is?

And everyone shouts back, "Of course I do!"

Good, then write a paragraph describing it. (I'll wait.)

Now, here are four tasks, in order of increasing difficulty.

1) Ask yourself if your job description matches the way that you spend your time at work. If so, good. If, however, you spend most of your day in meetings talking about assorted stuff, such as last night's ball game, then there's a problem.

2) Ask your boss to describe your job to you. (Caution: this step assumes that you work for an enlightened leader who values personal development.) Then compare that description with the one that you wrote. If there's a difference, you now have something to talk about.

3) Ask key members of your staff to describe what they think your job is. Then compare these descriptions with a) each other, b) the one you wrote, and c) the one your boss gave you. Any differences reveal the need to explore the reasons why.

4) First, write a description of each person's job in your department. Then ask each person to tell you what they think their job is. Compare their answers with the one that you wrote. As before discuss any differences.

Important considerations.

1) Expect that this project will lead to amazing conversations.

2) Some people will want to know why no one ever told them what was expected of them before.

3) When you ask questions like this to members of your staff, some of them will try to please you by attempting to guess the correct answers. So, you may need to ask more than once.

Key Point: You (and others) must know what you're expected to do in order to do it.

Much success,

Steve Kaye

714-528-1300

Author, Speaker, IAF Certified Professional Facilitator

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