This past month I took a gap job, nothing fancy, but something to get a little money after I left the bad environment I got to work at the end of the past year.

I took a job in a field that I never worked before (mechanic) and during this few weeks I had to learn a big set of new skills, I knew my way around a tool, but not the pieces we had to fix. This came with a lovely surprise.

For the first 2 days my manager was explaining me everything, but on day 3, I was left alone (not fully).

I was given full responsibility of what I had to do, with the ability to ask for help if needed (Which with how consistent I am at asking questions to learn happen more often than not), I was impressed that even if you fucked something up and broke it in the process, you move to fixing the issue and carry on.

With this responsibility I was learning to a really quick pace how to improve my skill in the situation after this past 3 weeks I started to notice that my manger is entrusting me with more situations where I can be of use and I been feeling quite praised in my work by him asking my help more often.

I was listening to a podcast today where the Host, said something along the line of ‘’A CEO’s responsibility is to hire people more qualified than themselves, and then get out of their way. ‘’

And this hit a chord.

In contrast to my experiences on gymnastics, where (except on few isolated cases) coaches then to be reluctant to relinquish control, I was reminded on a conversation we had a Lilleshall a few years back.

That day one of the coaches (A great one, I was learning a lot from by the way), said that we gymnastics coaches are control freaks, and at that point I probably agreed more than now.

In my last job, I could see how kids were forced to perform to a high standard by the coach, this worked really well when the coach was there. But dropped down when he was not present in the room, he was teaching his athletes to work by compliance , instead of empowering them to improve for the same sake of it. He demanded the results that would look good, but for example in my case, he failed to explain or understand what I had to do.

I felt no leadership from him.

Such a shame, it is amazing a I can find better leadership on a mechanic that a high performance coach.

In the past few years I have been learning that relinquishing control and empowering the people I work with makes wonders (Yes, even with little kids, which may surprise many).

And that starts earlier than most people think. Letting athletes be part of building their own program is something I want to get into properly, but that deserves its own post.

I have seen 10 year Old’s in that same gym take the responsibility of leading their teammates during a warm up, with just a few cues from me, even making them fall in lines after some of them started playing and that was the results of my putting my trust in him.

I tend to notice that most people fret too much about and end result that they forget the process, and while I gave this boy the responsibility, he was far from perfect. But that is where coaching come from, in me teaching him to do it best next time. Suffice to say, by my standards the ability to move from a 2nd plane of just performing to learning in such a short span was a wonder in itself.

So back to my point, are we leading people or bossing them around?

Do you uplift people to be able to improve and take charge so you have to do be less responsible of the outcome and it’s a shared result? Or is your ego driving you to look good for others and you try to control everyone around?