A common situation for a Lead to find oneself in is that they’re extremely busy because they don’t have enough good people to delegate to, but not feeling they can focus on hiring those people because they’re so busy!

This is a really pernicious cycle that can swamp great people, and ultimately cause them to fail to meet the moment. They get further and further in over their head, and it becomes more and more obvious to everyone that they and their team aren’t operating at the standard of excellence we aspire to.

The only way to break the cycle is by ruthless focus on hiring. You’re going to have to make some short-term trade-offs on execution, setting aside things you might normally do, so you can find the folks that will ultimately take us to the next level.

This doesn’t mean lowering your tolerance for badness – you should abhor and rage against the fires you’re letting burn! But burn they must, for now. Be proactive in calling them out to your lead and team, and acknowledge you’re making a brutal tradeoff so you can get the leverage we need to put out the flames long-term.

Some leads are scared to do this, because they’re more comfortable just doing the tasks themselves instead of hiring. They are confident they can get hands-on and make something better, but not as confident they can go and find someone better than them to do it long-term. A great Lead recognizes this bias and purposefully corrects for it, using their own Lead for assistance and accountability.