Cascading mediocracy 

Three different people have explained managing a team to me as being about being able to let go of work, to allow the team members to do that work that you would have otherwise done even knowing that that won’t do as good a job as you would have.

I don’t accept that. I don’t think managing a team should be about accepting lower standards. If that’s the mindset of managers across an organisation then the more layers of management the organisation has the greater the cascading of mediocracy. And by the time it gets down to the bottom of the organisation the only quality work happens in spite of the mindset.

So, I’m not going to expect or accept that the people I work with will do a worse job than I would have done. I’m going to expect them to do it better than me. But I’m going to have to find ways to help them with that. That’s what management should be about; making the team stronger, more efficient, more effective, helping them level up.