***Switch Drivers

It's not hard to imagine. You've probably done it yourself. You're on a cross-country car trip with the family. After ten hours or so, and just a couple of bathroom breaks in that time, you've decided that you can't drive anymore. You look over to the passenger seat where your spouse has been sleeping through the last three hours of driving. You are exhausted. Your spouse is refreshed. So, you switch off.

There comes a time in every manager's career where he or she hits that same wall: goes as far as he or she can on the tools they possess and then that's it. In order to take the company or department to the next level, the boss is required to switch off with someone who knows the road, has the desire to get there and possesses the capabilities to lead the team to the next level.

Dr. Laurence Peter, in his 1968 book The Peter Principle, wrote the following: In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

Well, surprise, surprise, that includes bosses too. It is the responsibility of the boss to recognize that he or she has taken the team as far as he or she can and then get ready to get out of the way. Sadly, this is not how it ends up working out. Sadly, in an effort to continue to collect a regular paycheck, many bosses end up sabotaging the growth of the business by staying in the bosses seat well past the level of their own competence. And in doing so, the business starts to decline. The boss is then forced to downsize some of the people who helped make the company what it is and the boss will do everything else except solve the problem. The solution: trade in the boss for someone new.

The smart boss, the benevolent boss, is the one who steps out of the way of the business progressing beyond his or her capabilities, finding a suitable successor and then either staying on to oversee specific projects or finding a new company that he or she could help move forward.

It's at a crucial time like this that the difference between managers and leaders becomes glaringly obvious. A leader will lead until he or she doesn't know the way anymore and then will look for someone who can lead beyond where they are. A manager will attempt to convince everyone else that he or she can lead beyond where they are. In likelihood, there are people who are on the team who could take the reigns of power and move the company forward but the manager is in the way.

My friend Phil had a conversation with me about this a few weeks ago. He is planning to find a way to step aside of his own business and prepare for semi-retirement. As he said, "I figure I've got three years to get out of the way or the people who are most capable of running this company will become discouraged and leave. If that happens, then the business isn't worth much to someone else to buy because there'll be no one left to run it."

So, are you in the way of your own company's future success? Think about it. Be honest. Then do the right thing.