Ready-gation

Impactful work is always complex. It's always difficult. And it's always too much!

When we choose to do impactful work, we absolutely must do it as a team. What happens far too often is that the leader sees where the work and workflow should be going, but some (or all) of the team does not.

Aligning the team to the work needs is a fundamental responsibility of leadership. It is essential to executing the work and achieving the aspired outcomes. 

Some particularly successful leaders in this regard practice the following. They...

• Relentlessly remind the team of where we're going and why.
• Match team members with work that aligns to their skills set.
• Establish clear and written assigned roles for the team members.
• Schedule regular and brief team-wide "check-up" meetings.
• Meet with each team member much more frequently, around the specifics and depth of their assigned role.

The best leaders I know praise and express gratitude a LOT publicly. They redirect/criticize individually and privately. 

I've worked for a few leaders like that. (A few too few.)