Leadership

I've been in the industry for a long time and in the course of those decades, I've seen many leaders, some to emulate, others that serve as a warning to others.

Except that now, I'm a leader.

It's different when I'm managing just one team, or even two. Now, I'm managing teams and products in the low double digits. It's not sustainable and I'm starting to burn furiously. I need to find a way out of this, and soon. However, there is one thing I refuse to let go except perhaps at the very last moment: my responsibility to my people.

I had a meeting recently with my peers and superiors. I'm the only person who referred to those under my leadership as "my teams". Everyone else maintained this arms-length detachment from the people they managed. In fact, one of my bosses shook his head and told me that it sounded strange to him that I should be calling the staff "my teams" or "my people".

Fact: my teams are the only ones NOT pulling regular nights and weekends.
Fact: my teams perform at velocities of at least 0.75.
Fact: I have delivered on every single deadline I've promised thus far either on time or early.

I am not going to comment on the performance of other teams. Let's just say that my teams are much sought after for critical projects due to our proven reliability. I'm proud of them, extremely so.

Lastly, my people are *happy* and loyal. They consider me a part of them, regardless of what department they're in. I'm the one and only manager able to cross all departmental boundaries in the company and be accepted. The one aspect of my relationship that I value the most is trust, which goes both ways: they trust me enough to come to me if they've screwed up, knowing that I'm going to help them instead of judging. Furthermore, they won't hesitate to call me on things they think I'm screwing up and they'll circle the wagons for me.

It took me a long time to get here. And now, it's time to go before I get completely burnt out because relief is not coming; if it were, they wouldn't have put that much responsibilities on the shoulders of a single mid-level manager. It's hard to leave my people because I know they'll get tossed into the meat grinder.

Darn it.