Superwoman does it all.

Three learnings shared

Oh, if I could operate just on rationale. But no, as humans, no matter how educated and no matter how smart we think ourselves to be, most of the stuff needs to be learned by experience. Years and years ago I thought that being a good supervisor meant that I should prepare and almost half do all the stuff on behalf of my team members. You know, that it would be more efficient to do the work halfway and then leave others to finish it. That I should actually be the one in the team to have the most knowledge about something. Luckily my team was soon to correct me. Surprisingly they were not too motivated to just deliver based on my beginnings. They wanted to think for themselves. All this despite of me pushing it to and beyond my limits delivering decent enough project starts for them. There were more lessons than one for me and I tried to take advantage of them all.

First, I learned to delegate. And while learning, I decided to delegate everything I could and as early as I could. You know, just to get the routine in. This led me to new learnings. Like the fact that despite my vigorous delegating operation, my desk kept piling up with new task requests. I learned to trust that there is always more work than can be done. Never start protecting your work role.

Secondly, I received a gift of understanding motivation. Mine and others. Realization that they differ most of the time. Mine comes from within, others have variable sources. My motivation is in my hands and your motivation is in your hands. Though you are in control of your motivation, I can be a great asset in helping you to find it and more importantly an asset in creating such circumstances that your drivers of motivation can have a party for you to join in.

Thirdly, I learned that leadership is more about how than what. I will probably never be the master of the universe in any specific subject matter. Still, with delegation I have been able to touch upon subjects I never thought seeing on my work desk and I’ve certainly learned a lot on the way also on the subject matters. But oh my oh my oh my, what sort of thrills I get when I see people moving forward and projects being delivered. And I admit that I do not only enjoy the growth of others, but I do enjoy my contribution as well. You see, I have my superwoman cape on all the time. You just cannot see it. But take a look around.