approach made good logical sense and would deliver to everyone a “win-win” outcome and experience. Instead, my clandestine motives (driven by impatience) created a “lose-lose” outcome for me and my team member. In short, I frustrated my report with my nonstop project monitoring. As we neared midway of the project’s completion, my colleague came to me and shared how they felt overwhelmed with the project and asked to be taken off the assignment. We discussed the benefit of staying on the project and gaining that valuable career development experience, but this discussion did not persuade them to stay on. At the time and driven by my limited and singular focused view, I took their response as a sign that they were not ready for this prime-time opportunity, and so I agreed to take them off the project. As I took the project over, delivered it ahead of schedule, and subsequently received several “great job” and “congrats” comments, these platitudes provided a short-term win for me but not for my direct report. Why? Because my shortsightedness and impatience derailed a chance to provide an opportunity for personal development to someone who truly needed project management experience to move forward in their career. Even worse, later that year during a review, I asked my report to take on another task, and they immediately responded with a “No, I think I’ll pass.” I was shocked to hear this response as they opened up to me about my “lack of patience” management style. I told them (and tried to justify that) my impatience was driven by the goal of having them underpromise and over-deliver, and I explained the wonderful benefits of this process. After sharing my rationale with my colleague, the look I received from them was one I will never forget. My report told me, “Cleo, I do not work at your pace, and in fact, I work at my own. You said this task was good for my development, and with the timeline, we had agreed to, I was on task to complete it, but you never mentioned the ‘getting it
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