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Agency Espresso

It's not all on you

There's a lot going on at the moment, isn't there?

For you, as the leader, it means the pressures of work are higher — constantly sensing, analysing and responding to keep everything running smoothly.

But there's a tendency to take it ALL onto your shoulders.

Too many leaders think they need to keep the stressful stuff to themselves, and put a rose-tinted spin on everything to the team. Then they struggle on and sort it all out on their own.

Your business doesn't need a martyr, it needs a leader. Someone to bring people together in facing up to reality, and being determined to win through it.

A leader achieves bigger things than they could on their own through enabling others to work on them together.

In his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, tech-CEO turned famous venture capitalist Ben Horowitz writes:

"My single biggest improvement as a CEO occurred on the day when I stopped being too positive.

I thought that I would make the problem worse by transferring that burden to my employees.

Instead, I thought I should project a sunny demeanour and rally the unburdened troops to victory.

I was completely wrong."

In agencies we're blessed with having entire teams of brainy creative people who are used to problem solving.

We trust them to solve problems for clients — that are often way bigger than our own business, with bigger problems.

So we should trust them with the same in our own business. It's part of what they're paid for, and we don't need to protect them from it.

As Ben Horowitz says:

"You won't be able to share every burden, but share every burden that you can with your teams. Get the maximum number of brains possible on every problem."

So this week, give some thought to what weight you're carrying on your shoulders alone, how to start to put that load down, and how you can involve the rest of your team in handling those issues.

You're not alone.

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