Reward Excellence
“Don’t reward your top performers with more work.” ~ Listen Up, Leader
As leaders, we count on our top performers to do great work. But it’s not fair to make them do everything. Make sure that you are giving everyone a fair share of the workload.
If you have one person who has a specific skillset that is needed, then keep the assignments of other work lighter, so they have time to prioritize that one thing. But also find ways to grow a “deep bench” on that skill—get a couple of other people trained on it, either by having that skilled team member teach them, or by getting them outside training. That skilled person can then delegate more of those tasks to them, and then check their work, to make sure it was done right.
If that one vital person suddenly has a family emergency, you want to be the good boss who says, “Go. Take care of your family. That’s what’s really important.” rather than the bad boss who says, “But we have four projects that need you this week! Your wife will still be in the hospital this weekend. It’s not like they need you to perform the surgery.”
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