Some job descriptions are chiseled in stone, never to be touched. Those kinds of jobs are the same day after day, shift after shift. You put the bolt here, turn the screw this way, apply a sticker here. Anyone can do it, and everyone is expected to do it the same.
However, leadership and management isn’t an assembly line task, even though many have tried to make it one. Leadership requires that you create, edit, share, delegate, coach, think on the fly and do it all with an eye on the impact of your actions on others.
Some managers and leaders feel confined to assembly-line leadership by their job description. That’s why I recommend leaders spend time each spring looking at what they spend their time doing, and seeing if it matches their values, is in line with their yearly goals, and is within their gifts.
Often when you reflect on these things you’ll notice that the most important things you do aren’t reflected in your job description. When that happens, it’s often time to have a little spring cleaning for your job description.
Are you doing things that were useful four years ago, but those tasks don’t make sense in this new environment? Is your job description something that has just been passed down from manager to manager and isn’t used a guide or measuring tool? Time to sweep out the useless boundaries and put in some meaningful metrics and descriptors.
David Curry
