As a leader with critical responsibilities that seem endless, it can be challenging to step away from your team and company for a vacation. When you’re not around to supervise your employees or approve important information yourself, you can be more stressed than relaxed during your free time.
Before they leave the office, there are some steps leaders can take to put their minds at ease and make sure everything runs smoothly during their absence. Below, 15 ukbusinessupdates.com Business Council members shared their top tips for preparing their teams for business while they’re away.
ukbusinessupdates.com Business Council members talk about how leaders can let go of the reins and take a vacation.
Photos courtesy of individual members.
1. Take a short vacation first
There is nothing better than practice. Therefore, before taking an extended vacation as a manager, I strongly recommend that you take a short vacation and leave the office for only two to three business days. However, there is one specific technique that works great. Before you leave, you and your team can make a to-do list of the essentials they should prioritize during your absence. – Vilma Nuñez, Convierte Mas
2. Help your team develop a solution-oriented mindset
Create a culture where everyone is empowered to make decisions and make mistakes without fear. Sometimes mistakes are the best lessons, so showing mercy and letting your team learn from mistakes helps them become confident and self-sufficient. Eliminate the fear of failure that often prevents people from getting things done. – Catherine Kuo, Elite Commercial Real Estate
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3. Support your team in making decisions independently
I believe the best approach is to build your team independently and solution-oriented from the start. Support them in making decisions independently, making mistakes and learning from those mistakes. That way, the structure you’ve built continues to run whether you’re there or not. – Ran Ronen, like AI
4. Trust your team
Building a good team is difficult, but it is even harder to learn to trust and believe in the responsibility of your employees. Unless you teach your employees to be independent, you will never have complete trust in them and you will always be as involved as possible in all processes. Learning to delegate is a necessity for every entrepreneur. – Mark Snel, Polestar plumbing, heating and air conditioning
5. Set clear expectations and procedures
You limit your growth when your business depends on one person for success. Instead, by setting clear expectations and building repeatable standards of work and procedures, leaders can help leaders exit with confidence. Setting up reliable systems is an essential recipe for any successful business. Prevent your processes from getting complicated. Build systems that are simple and easy to follow. – Loubna Noureddin, Mind Market Consultants
6. Create goals and check-ins with employees
Vacation is a perfect crossroads to demonstrate, for example, the importance of a balance in life while also showing confidence in your staff. Trust is built with clarity about the expectations within that trust. Before the holidays, managers should contact each employee to reach a mutual agreement on the expected output upon the supervisor’s return and to ensure that the employee gets what he needs. – Lowell Aplebaum, Vista Covac
7. Create an accountability table
Create an accountability schedule and highlight all lines of communication necessary for the operational movement of the company. Then try it for the same period prior to your holiday. This will also help you move away from operational execution more broadly to focus on the strategic direction of the business. – Samuel Johnston, nth company
8. Find your number two
Designate someone to cover and be your contact. Be clear about the level of authority you grant them, share how they handle situations, and point out what to do if they’re not sure. Hold a team meeting to make sure everyone has work and their responsibilities. On your return, schedule an early morning debrief so you can jump back into things as if you never left. – Alisha Raeszo, fourlane
9. Leave top talent in charge
I think you can be more confident if you know you have intrapreneurs and the right leaders. This means boosting them with things like stock options, bonuses, and other things that will attract top talent. When you have that top-tier talent and they bought your company and mission, it seems like you weren’t gone at all. – Michael Leonard, The market atmosphere
10. Get involved in scenario planning
The key to instilling the independence and trust of others — whether it’s an employee taking charge when you’re away or a kid learning to ride a bike — is to plan scenarios. Help employees visualize the road ahead, coach the person’s confidence, support the hardest part (ie getting started) and amplify initial success before “letting go of the bike seat” and they keep going! – Jerry Cahn, Brilliant old
11. Be available in an emergency
Find a balance by asking your managers to be backups for certain tasks and letting them know they can contact you in case of an emergency. This way you show confidence for the team and at the same time let them know that they can count on you if they get stuck. Build systemic processes that can support the business even when you’re not there and build a lean culture. – Sudha Chandrasekharan, Trelleborg
12. Assign tasks to specific team members
When leaders go on vacation, it is common for the team to witness delays in results. However, this is an opportunity to empower the team to make decisions on its own. One thing leaders can do is create a checklist of results and deadlines. Assigning tasks to each team member makes them accountable. Communicate your vacation plans ahead of time so they can include priority items accordingly. – Saravana Kumara, kovai.co
13. Have solid processes
Creating a culture of trust is key, and while trust is the foundation of strong leadership, so are processes. By balancing both trust in the processes and trust in the individuals running the processes, managers can go on vacation with confidence without their own tension or concerns spilling over into the team and negatively impacting their experience of doing things. to manage while the leader is away. – Karim Zuhric, Cascade strategy
14. Do some planning ahead
To leave the company for a vacation, leaders need to plan ahead and have a realistic idea of the priorities that need to be addressed during that time. It’s important to hire people you can rely on who can also think for themselves and make good decisions. This gives you the confidence to take time off without worrying about what’s happening in the office. – Meighan Newhouse, Inspiring group
15. Nurturing Leadership Skills
As leaders, managers must nurture the leadership values of everyone on the team. They should do this from day one, not just out of necessity. This is done by constantly communicating with the team, trusting them and supporting them to do their best at work. Remember that great leaders should produce leaders, not followers. – Lane Kawaoka, SimplePassiveCashflow.com
