are no good employees, they berate their own subordinates because they can’t do the work like they are “supposed to.” But, how can the employee improve if the supervisor keeps jumping in to “help”? Eventually, the supervisor gets tired. He/She is putting in longer hours to get the job done because he/she is spending too much time doing the work of their people. The supervi- sor gets burned out. This leads to a number of additional bad situations: turnover, low production, and even lower morale, to name a few. If the supervisor is too busy jump- ing in and re-doing work, then they are not using their time to carry out their own responsibilities. These other things may not be directly related to production, so they may not be missed initially. But they will be caught later, after the problem has snowballed. For example, the superintendent may be in charge of filling out time sheets. Half the time, he turns them in late, and the rest of the time, they are inaccurate. Payroll is now forced to track him down to correct the problem. Finally, this supervisor is hold- ing himself back. By continuing to micromanage his staff, he is insur- ing that they don’t develop. If there is no one to replace the superin- tendent, then he, in turn, cannot advance. Some people mistakenly think that, by not developing their subordinates, they are maintaining job security for themselves. In fact, what they’re doing is hurting the company. So, how does a company over- come this situation? Three basic steps are: 1) a thorough description of the superintendent position, 2) strong leadership from those who oversee the superintendent, and 3) training for the newly promoted superintendent in time management, delegation, and profitability. If you are the best in your com- pany at the work you do, let yourself get bad at it.Your supervisors are not getting paid for doing your work. This is not to say that the leadership of the firm should forget all they learned about the business on their way up the corporate ladder, but it is saying others should learn the task and the leadership should be learn- ing new things. The pace of change is rapid today and employees need to be doing what they are paid to do. Line employees need to pro- duce, supervisors need to oversee the production of line employees, and senior leadership should do whatever it can to make sure those two groups have the right training and resources to do their jobs the best they can. If you are in charge of people, your goal is to help them get better at what they do, not to do it better than they do. Wally Adamchik is President of FireStarter Speaking and Consulting. Visit the website at www.beaFireStarter.com. He can be reached at 919-673-9499 or wally@beaFireStarter.com. BUSINESS TIP ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 30 TileLetter | November 2018