The leadership standard that builds strong teams fast

Somebody asked me to give one or two tips on how I handle a junior directly. Good. I will give you both of them right now, because this is the important part.

One: never let a junior come to you with a problem that does not have a solution attached. Two: if you issue orders, they must be in writing, there must be a due date, and somebody has to be following up on it, even if that somebody is you.

That sounds simple. It is simple. Now let me show you what each one actually looks like inside a company, because the details are where most people fall down.

The sky is falling

Stuff happens all the time. Situations come up in every business, and we call them problems. Where did this come from? Why is this suddenly on my desk? It is real, and I am not pretending otherwise.

But you do not want someone running into your office going, oh my god, the sky is falling. I cannot stand that. I will kick them out of my office. It is not okay with me. I have enough of my own problems that I am trying to handle from my own position.

Now, I am their senior. If something serious is occurring, I can see where they would need some help, and I will give it. But I do not let anyone walk in, drop a big problem in my lap, sit back, and go, so how are you going to solve it? I will not let that happen. Instead I ask: what is your solution? What could we do? What are some things that could happen here?

You have to let your juniors evolve and grow and figure this stuff out. That is how you build a good group. You get people taking responsibility for their position and truly owning it, and once they own it, they stop coming to you with the sky falling.

Put the order in writing

The second rule covers the other direction: what happens when I want something done. When I tell someone I want something done, I put it in writing. I give them an order. I make sure they know exactly what it is, and there is a timeline on it. A regular order in my companies gets about a week unless I say otherwise.

Here is how it works in practice. Say I am out in the company talking with someone, we are going over some things, and I decide I want something done. I tell them what I want. Then I say, now feed it back to me. They repeat it, and I make sure they understood. Then I say, good, now send me an email telling me what I ordered you to do.

I get the email. I read it. I make sure it is correct. That one step kills a whole category of failure, because now there is no version of, well, I thought you meant something else. The order exists, in writing, in the exact words we both agreed on.

Somebody runs it to the ground

The email gets one more touch before it counts: my executive assistant is copied on it. From that moment she runs it to the ground. She keeps track of every order and makes sure I get compliance on it. I talked with her about it just the other day, and on average she is tracking about fifty open orders at a time, making sure everybody is getting things done.

Maybe you do not have an executive assistant yet. Fine. Then the person following up is you. An order that nobody chases is not an order, it is a suggestion, and the moment your people learn that your orders are never followed up on, your orders stop meaning anything.

Obviously there is a lot more involved in running a team than this. But these are two super key elements. Never let a junior give you problems without solutions. And if you issue orders, put them in writing, give them a due date, and have someone follow up, even if it is you. Implement those two things alone and I will tell you something: it will change your professional world, and it will start increasing your income.