The first thing leaders should consider when feeling frustrated with a team member
Last week, I talked about a hard but incredibly powerful experience I had with Monique, my thought partner and our team’s Chief of Growth.
In case you missed it, you can catch up here, but this is the gist:
Monique and I had a series of hard conversations that taught us the power of choosing to lean in, stay curious, and show up for each other over and over again. Because we kept making that choice together, we took our relationship—which was already rock-solid and stronger than most in my life—and our trust to a level I hadn’t thought possible.
In last week’s post, I didn’t share the subject of our chats or the solution we found, which was intentional. I wanted to keep the focus on how we approached these conversations because the “how” is what made the rest possible.
I realize that as you read, you may have thought to yourself, “What the heck were they talking about?!”
Today, with Monique’s permission, I’m going to answer that question. And not just that: I’m also going to share another big learning from the experience, which I now know is the first thing leaders should consider if they are ever feeling frustrated with a member of their team.
So what were Monique and I talking about?
Simply put: I was feeling let down in my working relationship with her.
It wasn’t something I could easily articulate or put my finger on. It wasn’t like Monique was doing a bad job—she is fantastic at her role—and I know that she’s committed to me and to the business. But the way I saw it, a part of the business that Monique is responsible for wasn’t moving forward at a pace I was happy with. I was feeling frustrated by that, and I’d started to question whether Monique had the capacity to handle it.
I want to be clear that this wasn’t a glaring issue or something so serious it required a performance review. Monique wasn’t neglecting this part of her role or even close to it. She has a lot on her plate, our business is busy, and we have a small team; I questioned if there was anything we could even do about the frustration I felt. I thought it might just be a natural tension to manage in a growing company.
Monique and I had talked about this issue in the past, but still, something felt off for me. I noticed my frustration slowly growing. As you know from last week’s post, my therapist encouraged me to share that with Monique, which led to a series of very difficult conversations between us.
I learned that Monique was also feeling frustrated with me. She shared that there were things I was doing that were making it harder for her to do her job. She felt that I often overstepped in some of her projects (which turned out to be the ones I felt weren’t moving at the pace I imagined) and that I slowed them down and left her with little to no room to experiment or screw up. She also shared how discouraging it can be when I change my mind and ping-pong between ideas for the future of the business.
Even though it was so tough, we remained committed to leaning in and staying curious about each other’s perspectives. By doing that, we eventually realized what the problem was—and it was nothing either of us expected.
At one point in our conversations, I made a comment I didn’t think twice about. To provide context for another point I was making, I laid out how I saw Monique’s role and what I call the five “buckets” (or major components) of her responsibilities.
When Monique heard that, something shifted for her. She called it a “light bulb moment” and told me she’d never heard me articulate her role so clearly before. She said she saw it exactly the same way.
What we realized together is that we were aligned on what the five buckets of her role should be, but we looked at them with different levels of urgency. To Monique, all five buckets were equally important and urgent, so she was doing her best to split her time evenly between them. But the way I saw it, there was one bucket that should be getting the greatest amount of her time and attention. I was frustrated by the lack of progress in that area, which is why I often stepped in to speed things along.
There’s another layer to this issue that complicated it even further: Monique is solely in charge of her buckets . . . except this one. She co-owns it with me.
Co-ownership is already a challenge for us because we approach projects so differently. I like to feel the energy around a project, talk to stakeholders or past clients to get their feedback, and only start building once I’m very clear on what our audience wants. Monique says I’m more of a feeler than a doer.
Monique, on the other hand, wants to jump in head-first. She prefers to build something quickly and then refine it in response to feedback and testing. She’s more doer than thinker or feeler.
What kept happening was that Monique would be all set to dive into a project and create something tangible from an early idea, and I would pump the brakes. I wanted us to talk through all of the possibilities, the pros and cons, and get a really clear idea of where we were going before Monique invested a bunch of her valuable time into it.
Neither approach is better than the other; the problem was how badly they clashed. Following Monique’s approach kept me in the dark: She needed time and space to get clear on her ideas and work on them on her own before coming to me for feedback, but that left me wondering about her progress and the direction she’d chosen. My approach, on the other hand, paralyzed Monique with indecision: I threw so many ideas at her and then didn’t allow for the space she needed to think strategically about them.
It took us almost a dozen conversations to get there, but we finally figured out that all Monique and I needed to do was learn how to co-own this bucket in a way that allowed her to feel empowered.
That was a pivotal moment. After that, the topic shifted to what we each needed when it came to that particular bucket, and we challenged ourselves to be explicitly clear. I shared the things that I cared about most and what I needed from her to be able to fully let go. Monique shared what she needed from me when it came to keeping up momentum and building excitement around this bucket, which she said would help her get the results I wanted.
And once we did that? It was off to the races. We both had a newfound energy for tackling these projects together. We both instantly felt aligned. We both instantly felt clear. And since then, we've made more progress together than we’d made all year.
There was a huge learning in this for me as a leader. Monique pointed out that we had never had this conversation since her role evolved four years ago.
Today, Monique is our Chief of Growth, but four years ago, she was our Chief of Operations. The responsibilities and measures of success for that role are pretty black-and-white, so it used to be very easy for Monique to know what her goals were, how to hit them, and how to surpass them.
Her role today is primarily strategic. The goals are less tangible and the sky is the limit for what we can accomplish, which makes it harder to quantify success. It’s also much more dependent on my vision and input, and as a result, her workload ebbs and flows depending on how much time I have to work on things or what else we have going on in the business.
I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t had this conversation with Monique sooner. I think it highlights a pitfall for leaders: Sometimes, especially when we’ve been working with someone for a long time and know them well, we assume that we’re on the same page when we aren’t.
Even though Monique’s role was clear in my mind and I could easily articulate it, that wasn’t helpful because I didn’t make it clear for her. As her leader, I owe her that clarity.
That’s why this is the first thing I would recommend to any leader who is feeling frustrated or let down by someone on their team—especially a high-value high achiever. Ask yourself if you’ve created clarity in their role. Things like: Have we defined the components of the role? Are we aligned on the prioritization of those components? Have we defined what success looks like and what the expectations are? Have I asked them what they need from me in order to be successful? Is there any way I might be unknowingly limiting their ability to move forward?
If you can do this, you might have the same light bulb moment that Monique and I did—and you might be able to get to it a lot faster.
And even if it does take you several difficult conversations to get here, I can tell you, it’s so worth it.
So where can you start? If you’re frustrated with someone on your team, can you have a clarifying conversation with them? If you’re in the same position Monique was in, could you have a conversation with your leader about it? (And if you’re looking for some support when it comes to having performance-related conversations, this resource might be a good place to start!)
Tell me: Have you ever had an experience like mine and Monique’s? Have you ever committed to leaning into a conversation and had a moment of clarity as a result? Or maybe you tried, and it didn’t turn out the way you hoped. Tell us all about it! Hit “reply.” I’d love to know more about your experience and what this post brought up for you!
Big hugs,
