Sixty percent of employees don’t believe they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day at work, according to the 2017 State of the American Workplace report. Sadly, one common explanation for this is that their boss is too busy doing it for them. In our ten-year longitudinal study on executive leadership, among 2,700 leaders, 67% struggled to let go of work from previous roles. As leaders rise in organizations, they have a strong tendency to take the work that made them feel successful along with them. The resulting organizational compression — the compacting effect of leaders playing too low — leaves direct reports constrained from having impact, feeling less satisfaction from their job, and then forced to work lower than their role, too.
How to Tell Your Boss to Stop Doing Your Job
Sixty percent of employees don’t believe they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day at work. One common explanation for this is that their boss is too busy doing it for them. The resulting organizational compression — the compacting effect of leaders playing below their level — hurts the whole company. If your boss is doing parts of your job, start out by clarifying expectations. This could reveal that your boss isn’t even aware of what they’re doing. You can also ask if you’re falling short; this is a gentle way of clueing your boss in, and could also open the door to important feedback they’ve been hesitant to give you. If these steps don’t resolve the problem, try a more direct approach: point out the unintended consequences of their behavior, and then try problem-solving together.