I have seen this mistake play out more times than I can count, but I haven’t actually EVER heard anyone talk about it, so I thought it would be a good one to mention.

This has happened to me at least 3 times within ACQ over the last few years.

Someone really talented and hungry starts working more closely with another senior leader.

Maybe they got promoted, or they're just in more of my meetings now. And within a few months, something shifts. They start blocking their calendar for "thinking time." Fewer 1:1s with their own team. More talk about "strategy" in meetings that should be about execution.

They watched my calendar and thought: “That's what success looks like; I should do that too.”

Ironically, it is the exact WRONG move!!!

My job and their job are fundamentally different, and what looks like leadership when I do it looks like disengagement when they do it.

Your boss is SUPPOSED to be doing less hands-on work than you. OTHERWISE THEY WOULD BE DOING YOURS!

There's a researcher, Elliott Jaques, who spent SIXTY years studying this.

These aren't just different schedules. Jaques said it's the difference between “water and steam.” Same substance, different state. I actually really liked that analogy.

So when your boss seems to have more open time, talks a lot, and operates from a different perspective than you…

That's LITERALLY their job description. It is NOT yours. If you start operating like them, you leave a vacuum beneath you, and often your team starts wondering where you are and what’s going on???

So what DO you want to copy? Copy who they are, not what they do.

Copy their standards, values, how they communicate, and how they think through a problem. Those transfer at every level and are invaluable skill sets.

DO NOT copy their calendar…it reflects their job, not yours.

Do not copy their ratio of meetings to doing. You should have more doing.

Do not copy their delegation patterns; they delegate to you because you're supposed to do the work.

Do not copy their ALTITUDE. If they're at 30,000 feet, it's because they have someone at ground level. If you go up there too, nobody's on the ground helping the team who is there!

So… this week: look at one thing you've started doing because you saw your boss do it - blocking thinking time, skipping the details, delegating something you should still own.

Ask yourself honestly, “Is that actually your job right now, or did you just copy the wrong thing?

Then have this same conversation with your own direct reports. They're watching your calendar the exact same way you're watching mine.

Master where you are. The next level will come 

— Leila

Ps. Want to receive these memos in your inbox (completely free)?