Hey, what's up, John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com.
This is going to be a fun one today because I got a question about—the subject line
was, “My Junior is A Fierce Competitor.”
I like that.
There we go.
Let’s get some competition, some challenge here.
Here’s an excerpt from the email, I won’t read you the whole thing but he says, “As
lead developer I want to support my junior’s curiosity.
I also know how it feels to not be heard out.
I felt accused of adding incomplexity when introduced the organization to SaaS, and etc.
He has a lot of great automation ideas and I hear them out.
However, at the same time it makes me insecure since my focus has shifted to the granular
details of production workflow rather than what we should be doing.
What do I do?
I want to be a good leader, just having this insecurity makes me feel like a bad one.
Should I be worried?
Should I be putting in more time?
I started working on my blog more aggressively but writing is not code or planning for work.
Help!”
So just to give you a little bit more context here, so basically this guy he’s got this
guy that’s working under him.
He actually hired him, I believe, and now this guy is turning out to be a super genius
and he’s like suggesting all of these ideas, he reminds him of who he was but now he’s
the super aggressive competitive and really trying to make his way to the top.
What does he do?
Does he compete with this guy?
Does he fight with this guy?
He’s now in this leadership position and what do you do in this position?
You can get in this position pretty easily.
If you become the team lead, you are the whippersnapper that had fire in your belly and you were kicking
ass and now you’re kind of the—maybe the older, not necessarily the older guy, but
now there’s another young whippersnapper who’s vying for your position or is competing
with you and what do you do?
I’ll tell you what to do.
I’ve said this before, but the most valuable thing that you could possibly be to a company
is not to be a good employee, not to be a good worker but to be someone who raises the
level of everyone else.
Because if you are 2 times as effective as someone else that’s a multiplier of 100%.
It’s like 100% more effective.
But if you have a team of 10 people and you make each of them 25% more effective that’s
a lot more.
Here’s what you want to do in this situation.
Don’t compete with this guy, don’t try and fight this guy.
Don’t try to over bust your ass and work harder and outwork this guy.
Give him everything you can to make him as good as possible.
The better he looks the better you look because you are the manager or you are the lead.
Not just do it for this guy, do it for every single person on your team.
This is what responsibility, this is what leadership is about, this is what it’s about
to be a leader is not to make yourself look good, not to be the hero, it’s to make everyone
else the hero.
It’s to make everyone else better.
If you do that trust me it won’t go unnoticed.
Trust me, this guy is not going to—they’re not going to replace you with this new hot
shot, no, because you’re going to be way more effective.
Because no matter how strong this guy can be and lift the world on his shoulders, you’re
the one who’s propping him up.
You’re giving him the spinach that’s making him super strong.
You’re a force multiplier.
One person can only do so much.
That’s the key.
This is the key to the situation.
Instead of trying to outwork him and trying to do all this stuff and be with him, give
him fuel, give him as much as you can to make him as successful as possible and his success
will be your success.
The most successful leaders, the most successful people in positions of leadership are ones
that make everyone below them more successful.
If you do that, I promise you that will be better than anything that you could possibly
do on your own as far as your skills are concerned.
Anyway, hopefully that helps you and hopefully I will help disarm that situation.
I know it’s a difficult one.
You can feel threatened by it and I would too, but this is the proper way to handle
it, trust me.
Anyway, if you like this video subscribe to the channel and I will talk to you next time.
Take care.