Be the leader you wish you had when you started

My teenage son proudly told me he is training a new person at his work. A smile on his face, he knows the responsibility. I was happy for him. I wanted to cram years of leadership and emotional intelligence into that one moment. As anyone who interacts with teenagers can tell you, that wasn’t going to fly. I chose to give him one bit of advice: “be the leader you wish you had when you started.”

Often at the beginning of our career or at a new job, we can feel like we are “thrown into the deep end”. We can feel expected to work without much guidance or training. This works for some people and there’s no better experience than doing the work itself. But this doesn’t mean a leader should be absent from the onboarding process. New employees spend many hours onboarding. They look for half-written documentation, processes that may not exist or obscure acronyms.

My career started at a place where senior developers kept information to themselves. They felt this gave them more value. If they were the only people who knew how the code worked, they theorized they would have job security. This tactic works for a while. Employers don’t like this. A company once waited for such a developer to go on vacation. They hired an outside group to analyze all the code and unlock any secure areas. When the developer came back, they were asked to seek success elsewhere.

“A rising tide lifts all boats” is a phrase connected with economics. This phrase also works for learning in the workplace. When the team or company has knowledge, they can contribute more. You don’t feel like the only person working on the same task. You have people who can review your work or back you up when you take a day off. If you can take time to train others, you help yourself.

If mentorship isn’t your thing, documentation is a great way to share things you wish you knew when you started. New employees and coworkers are always looking for material to learn and grow.

By telling my son to be the leader he wished he had when he started, he got everything he needed to know. No lecture from me, just the understanding of what he is going to do.