Rosemary Maxwell Lynch, Psy.D. Sr. Consultant, Organizational Effectiveness Consulting Tel: 212.889.7788 rosemary.lynch@ayers.com	#1: PLAY TENNIS ON YOUR OWN SIDE OF THE NET Too many competent women feel overly responsible for what's happening around them. When you take on more than your share of responsibility, you prevent other people from meeting you halfway. Then you wind up wondering why you're doing all the work. Imagine your job—and your life—as a
tennis game. The goal is to hit the ball over the net into the court of the other player who will return it, hit it into the net, swing and miss, or let it go out of bounds. Some professional women seem to be hitting the ball and then running around to the other court to hit the ball back to themselves. Stay on your own side of the net to develop more balanced interactions.

While on vacation, one client realized that her behavior needed to change. She had been in the habit of not taking all the time off she had accrued, until the company instituted a new policy of "use it or lose it." While in Mexico at a spa, she allowed colleagues to call her cell phone. She spent a good part of every day on the phone dealing with issues at work. When she returned, she was exhausted and felt as if she hadn't been away.

She told me she wanted to incorporate this principle into her coaching program so she could learn how to do her own job effectively and allow others to do theirs. Once she became aware of where the inclination to play both sides of the net had come from, we were able to link it to her current behavior and begin to make the changes needed to ensure that her health was not adversely affected.

Another client made the decision to begin a coaching program when her boss told her that her direct reports were telling him she was a micromanager. Her tendency toward perfectionism—the need to seek flawless results—was causing her to be dissatisfied with everything her team did. Her negative reaction to their efforts was causing them to lose motivation. The concept of "good enough" eluded her. Since flawless results are unachievable, she found herself disappointed with every effort others made.

For both of these clients, the goal was clear: model leadership behavior for the team to emulate. Although their work in the coaching sessions differed in terms of where their behavior came from and how to accomplish the goal, both clients found the following suggestions to be helpful.

1. Choose a project and agree that a performance goal of 7 or 8 on a scale of 10 will be the target, not 10 out of 10.



2. Meet with the team and explain that, moving forward, each member will be fully engaged with his or her part of the project. The leader will be available to provide guidance and answer questions, but will no longer be doing all the work alone or taking back assignments that had been given to others.



3. Practice soliciting information and increasing team member involvement by asking critical questions, such as: "How do you recommend we begin this project?" "What do you see as the most important goals?" "Which methods do you suggest we use to complete the project most expeditiously?"