As a manager, you’re going to find yourself in a unique position. Your superiors will assign you a task and you’re going to turn around and delegate it to members of your team. When they’re done, you’re going to turn it in to your superiors and take all the credit.

Not cool.

The problem is that the more authority we have, the more we seem to value ourselves. In reality, though, we may talk more than the contributing members of our team – delegating and organizing – but when it comes to taking actual action we’re really not doing as much as we think.

So then we develop a secondary problem.

The more we think of ourselves, the less we think of the others we are working with.

That’s not good either.

You have an unabashed view of yourself. You think you’re the big cheese. And despite the fact that your team members are doing most of the work on a given project, you feel as though you are better than them and minimize the value of their work.

And their the ones doing it all to begin with.

The next time you delegate a task to your team, take a step back and think about how involve you really are in the project. When the project is finished and goes to the next level, make sure the right people know who participated and to what extent.

It’s fair, and it doesn’t make you any less of a manager. Giving proper credit will actually make you a better, ethical example!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Yesterday we started talking a bit about bias and today I want to touch just briefly one one of the four main types of bias – the conflict of interest. You may be wondering how conflict of interest can be categorized as a bias and I’m going to explain just that.

Simply put, if you are favoring people who you believe will be able to provide you some sort of perk or benefit later on down the line you have a conflict of interest. You are biased towards those people because of what you hope to get from them and instead pass over people who may be better qualified to do the work but less able to throw a perk your way.

How unfair is that?

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re the office manager in a physician’s office. A pharmaceutical representative comes into your office to try to give you information and samples about a new cholesterol medicine. When he visits he brings you free samples, a huge tray of bagels and fruit for the entire office to share, and a really nice padfolio to thank you for your time. He also tells you that for every new rX for this medication you write your office will receive a bonus or referral fee.

A pharmaceutical representative from another company comes in with a different cholesterol medicine. She brings you some free samples but doesn’t shower you with gifts. Instead she gives you a lot of great information about the drug and the research and studies behind it. The cost for consumers is a bit less than the other drug, too. The pharmaceutical company doesn’t have a referral program so you won’t get any kickbacks for selling what looks like a decent drug.

Which will you choose?

You might, right now, say that you’d pick the second but the truth is that if you were in that situation you might unconsciously choose the first. Why pass up the opportunity for a referral fee, even if the drug isn’t as great as the second, right?

Wrong. That’s comletely unethical.

But do you even realize you’re making decisions like these?

Probably not.

I urge you to take a close look at the decisions you’re making this year. Are they best for your team or are you looking for what’s best for you personally?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership Development

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”