Are you always the decider?
Don't let your personal relationships colour your decision making: use data to keep yourself honest.
Keep track.
If you haven’t already, start a Team Sheet. Not only will it help you keep track of the characteristics, motivations and aspirations of your team, it will also make it easier for you to keep track of how you interact with them and the progress they’re making.
Reflect.
One use for the Team Sheet is to record major differences of opinion, especially if you feel like you have to overrule a decision. This is useful twice over:
When you come to write performance reviews, you’ll have a record of what happened over the time period you’re reviewing. You won’t have to rely entirely on your memory, which can help avoid recency bias.
It will help with your own reflective practice and growth. You’ll have evidence to show whether you’re overruling one person on your team much more (or less) than the others. From there you can ask yourself why: * What’s driving that behaviour? * Is it something to do with the person in question? * Is it something to do with you, or your relationship with them? * Are you overruling the people you like get on best with less than the people you don’t? * Do you think that’s a good idea?
Take action.
If you constantly overrule someone you’ll undermine their confidence and their motivation. If nothing else it suggests you don’t trust their judgement - which in turn might suggest they’re in the wrong role, or that there’s something wrong with how you interact.
If you never feel like you have to overrule someone, that’s worthy of some thought too. Is your team member that good? Or are you unwilling to criticise them for some reason?
Reflect, get second opinions, and decide what to do next.
Resources
When to take this action
This action is from 'Overruled' and should be used when you find you're always questioning someone's decisions, when you won't let your team decide, when you let your team make all the decision
Need something else?
one-to-ones
Keep your HIPPO in check
Hippos are dangerous in the wild and in the workplace. Keep yours in check by exploring decisions before you overrule them.
one-to-ones
Feedback on your feedback
It's useful to know how your team feel about your feedback and intervention in their decision making. What do they think you could do better?
with-your-boss
Override the overrides
Is your boss constantly overriding your decisions? Don't just accept it: find out why they're doing it, and how you can make it stop.
with-your-boss
Challenge your decisions
Structured critique of your own decisions is useful too. Make sure you're getting it