1) Hiring someone who knows more can feel threatening
2) The fact that you're responsible for hiring someone probably means you're no longer expected to be the expert in the area for which YOU were initially hired. Now you need to be the expert at building a team.
What if your colleagues figure out that the person you hired knows more than you and decide you're redundant? Worse still, what if your bosses notice the same thing?
The courageous team leader recognizes that in order to build the very best crew, you need the very best people. Hiring the duds, people with limited knowledge and experience, happy to toe the line and duck questioning the status quo, only serves to make you feel comfortable and still in control. Hire the person who's going to make you unsettled and vulnerable, the one who blows out the work you've started and raises it to a whole new level. That is ultimately what will make your team better and consequently, make you better.
How will you continue to learn and grow professionally if there isn't someone who will constructively challenge what you've established? Someone who brings new knowledge, perspective and experience to the organization? It can be difficult to watch someone take over what you've been working on and make it even better. After all, how can it really get any better than when you did it?
Hiring the smarter candidate, the more knowledgable and experienced person, injects life into your team. And you'll benefit as exceptional work gets done and people recognize not only the new star employee, but your savvy and selflessness for bringing them on board and creating a team environment where they can thrive.
Hang on — did you get that last part about creating a team environment? That very well could be the most nerve wracking part of making a new hire. Now you have to be the smartest person in the room on how to build a great team. You just became the top dog of cultivating talent and creating a fun and inspired environment that produces exceptional work.
While the new hire takes the lead on areas that used to be your responsibility, you'll be planning strategy, providing proper support and resources, creating the freedom for risks to be taken, getting voices heard and opinions expressed.
Focus on this and quickly watch how your team members begin to view you as an advocate for their ideas and work. They'll want to work for you and, if they're indeed the authentic individual you saw in the interview, tell everyone that their success is due to your efforts.
Be the architect of a team no one can beat. Let go of your old territories and successes and embrace this new challenge. And watch the accolades from team members, bosses and colleagues roll in — possibly even more than they ever did for the work you were initially hired to do.
