Does Your Team Feel Like a Burden?

Performers hate being burdensome. Most will go out of their way to avoid feeling like they are inconveniencing or saddling their teammates or leader with problems or projects.

Yet, many times we make our teammates feel like they are a burden by unintentionally communicating that we are too busy to serve them or too important to serve at their level.

We do this when we:

  • Constantly operate in chaos.
  • Spend all our time doing versus leading.
  • Rarely show up to the office.
  • Avoid walking the floor.
  • Don’t bother to have any sort of proactive communication.
  • Firefight, or in other words, spend all our time reacting instead of planning ahead and strategizing.

So, how do we avoid burdening our teammates with the perception that they are a burden? Here are a few ways:

  • Figure out a way to get a handle on the chaos. That might mean delegating, prioritizing, moving some projects to the back burner, or sometimes just presenting a calmer demeanor in the mist of hectic times. When you’re uneasy, your team feels uneasy.
  • Redefine your scoreboard from winning by doing to winning through others.
  • Be present and accessible. If your office isn’t near your team, proactively go to them.
  • Talk to your people – about work and things outside of work. Find a connection with each individual.
  • Plan ahead. Where do you need to be in six months, and what do you need to be doing right now to be ready when it’s here?

Take a few minutes this week to consider how your team views you and how you can be more present and approachable to your team.


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