Managers don’t need to touch everything
- Give self-starters a sense of ownership
- Help develop a trust-based relationship
- Don’t compete or attempt to be better than your staff
- Give self-starters access to leadership
Celebrate successes, never dwell on failures
- Nothing kills self-starters’ attitudes like harping on missteps
- The best innovations were always preceded by failures
- Not everything is a home run, small things count too
- Do not just show up when thing go wrong
Allow for space
- Never allow the words “we’ve always done it this way” stand
- Let self-starters challenge the status quo
- Don’t let self-starters cut themselves off from the group by being too rigid
- Look for opportunities to launch a career rather than keeping butts-in-seats
Ask more questions
- Rather than making statements, ask questions
- Set clear expectations and then step back
How are you running staff meetings?
- Do you always talk first?
- Is there space on the agenda for others?
- Don’t list the meetings you will attend, focus on the why
- Never have a meeting to justify existence
Call projects “beta” or “demos”
- Self-starters want to be able to try new things
- If something didn’t work, be willing to kill it off; self-starters may have trouble letting it go
- Try an agile approach if possible; more small goals, sprint to get something done and out into the world