You should be proud of the work your team does, but it should not always be what you would do

This took a long time to click for me. As I transitioned from a maker to a manager, I knew that I needed to trust others and also the importance of communicating my vision to people. But time and time again, I found myself stuck when something wasn’t done how I expected, or did not meet my bar.

I realized that questioning yourself too much on when something doesn’t feel right, due to the feeling that you should be trusting your team, is a trap and is not the right thing to do.

The key, I’ve realized, is that you must be proud of what the team is doing. Being proud of what is produced is not the same as the results being what you would have done yourself. But it is important that you are proud of the work, and give feedback when you are not.

It’s important to be mindful of giving feedback in a way that allows people to take different approaches than you would, but it is also important to give that feedback when something doesn’t meet your bar, otherwise you are on a slippery slope to lower quality and to deviation from your vision.