You probably already know that I travel for work quite a bit. And who knew – sometimes NOT being available in the office can actually be a good thing! Doesn’t make sense, right? Conventional narrative says that leaders should always be present for their teams. This seems to have changed over time!
I recently noticed a dichotomy – when I am too “available”, some of my teams tend to rely on me instead of on themselves. And when I am sometimes “unavailable”, more leaders emerge!
Travelling, and sometimes even creating artificial unavailability (if not physical then from a mindspace point of view) has given some of my team members a chance to rise up. I would even recommend that leaders choreograph this! Use it as a way to figure out who your hidden gems are. In the process, you will discover who your successful managers are, and you will create a better succession pipeline.
We often see that when leaders are perpetually available, it in fact, lowers their team’s accountability. In our #DevelopmentJourneysByJombay, we get our participants to chart down their availability against their team’s accountability. And it’s an eye opener 
If you are looking to create opportunities for your team to increase accountability & ownership – maybe give them some space
