A Guide to Trusting Your Employees by Thomas P Seager, PhD
In most companies, success at the lower rungs of an organizational hierarchy often means moving up — to management, more responsibility, and higher levels of accountability. The idea is that success at producing work will translate into success at managing others who produce work.
Sometimes that is the case. Sometimes it is not.
Nevertheless, as you accumulate authority over and responsibility for the work of others, you’ll be challenged by the negative emotions associated with a loss of control. Ironically, grasping for control is one of the most common ways people manage negative emotions.
In too many organizations, trust is expected to flow up to those who have authority, accumulate the profits, and take the credit. Control is directed down towards those who have responsibility, receive wages, and take the blame. These are the organizations that fail to develop leaders, because they are managed out of fear.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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