Which option best describes your involvement in your team members’ work?

Our reader poll today asks: Which option best describes your involvement in your team members’ work?

• I stay out of their way and let them keep me updated with relevant information – 44%
• I involve myself in major work products and ask for regular updates – 47%
• I involve myself in much of their day-to-day until they push me out – 5%
• I get involved in every element of what they’re working on so I can help them – 4%

Can you? Yes. Should you? Maybe not. 56% of you report being involved in regular daily aspects of your team members’ work. While supervision is required and you need to know what they’re working on, you might want to ask yourself if your involvement in their work is advancing their efforts or taking away time from them getting things accomplished. Are you meaningfully contributing to work getting done or are you simply asking for updates and questions so you can answer questions if your manager or a stakeholder asks? When helping them with tasks, it’s not a question if you can perform the task yourself (the answer is likely ‘yes”). The more relevant question is whether or not you should be performing or contributing to the task. If you take a step back, look at higher level tasks you can be performing, and which is the best use of your time (and theirs!), you might change where you exert your effort.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.