Zarathustra
Let Go Of Your Team
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2009
- Messages
- 8,110
Yeah, we're usually not trying to set the agenda for others. It's hard enough staying on our own agenda, let alone managing the agenda of 5 or 10 others. The approach that NTP's take to leadership is usually: I'm going to show you how to do it properly and/or make sure you get the right training. After that, you're expected to make it happen. Make yourself competent. When we are in a new position, we only expect people to give us "basic training" and then we want freedom and space to figure out the rest - to operate fairly autonomously. And so we kind of expect the same from others when they work for us.
I know an ENTP business owner who gets frustrated with his employees. He tells me, "I pay these people good freakin' money. Figure it out. Don't make me hold your hand. For what I'm paying you, you should be extremely competent and not need my guidance every 15 minutes." It's funny to watch, cuz he gets pretty heated about it.
NTP's have a very "hands-off" approach to managing others. We expect you to pick up your own slack and to function at a very high level. Sometimes it's good cuz people who like to work independently enjoy that freedom and total lack of micromanagement. Other times it's bad (really bad) cuz people come to us for guidance/leadership and we're like, "Why are you asking me? I have stuff to do. Figure it out!" And yeah, we're really bad with deadlines. If I don't keep a list, I forget stuff.
That just doesn't sound like a good manager...