Will Kelly spent 18 months learning to manage people with no prior experience. He struggled with firing, hard conversations, and letting go of control. Real leadership means caring about your team while holding them accountable and getting out of their way.
It took me about 18 months to really grasp and understand how to lead and manage people, how to write somebody up. You see, I had never had a job where I was a manager of people. I did when I was in the military, but it was for a very short period of time, and I honestly didn't learn much from it. I didn't learn how to fire somebody when necessary, how to have uncomfortable conversations, how to care about people while still holding the standard. I used to think caring about someone meant giving them another And another chance. And another chance. What I learned is that leadership requires both. You can care deeply about someone and also tell them the truth. You can care about somebody and still hold them accountable for their actions. You can care about somebody and still decide they are not the right person for that position. That lesson allowed me to stop jumping back into every problem. But even teaching people to do the work isn't the final stage, because if every team member still needs you to lead them personally, you are still the bottleneck.
