Your job as a leader is not to be fair.
Unfairly allocate your time amongst your team spending more time with your newest and highest performing people.
Unfairly treat your promotion budget as a pot to be unevenly distributed rewarding your most successful team members.
Unfairly pick which meetings are graced with your presence. Don’t feel you have to show because you were invited, or haven’t been for a while.
This week I’ve told three different executives of my 50% rule. If you have open headcount on your immediate team you need to spend 50% of your time hiring for that role. Defining, outreaching to your network, interviewing, validating, and preparing for their first year in that role. Nothing holds you back as an executive more than being one or two people down on your team. That might seem like an unfair balance of your time but it is just what is needed.
Complaints about fairness come from kids for a reason. I have my own laboratory at home to prove this with eight year old twin girls with a ten year old sister.... whether it is who got the most carrots on the dinner plate, who last sat next to which parent at the movie theatre, or whose turn it is to put the star on top of the Christmas tree, they are keeping a running tally of fairness points so they can cry foul if it isn’t in perfect balance.
But as we tell our three daughters, our goal isn’t fairness, our goal is to give each daughter what they need when they need it. They might not want it but that is parenting for you.
Same applies to leadership. Forget what your team wants, simply give them what they need. Don’t get caught up in the illusion of fairness.
Dedicated to growing your business,
Val
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