(How?) Do you "come out" to junior staff?

[ellamama]

I was going to title this post “Whether/How to “come out” to “inferiors” but I didn’t want to offend. I mean, if the folks to whom you report are “superiors” aren’t the folks who report to you, therefore, “inferiors”? But I digress…

I’ve told some of my superiors about my “issue” and they’ve been supportive, but we agree that what I really need to do is to delegate more. While I love that idea–in theory–in practice I’m at a loss. Do I tell them what’s going on? I can imagine positive and negative outcomes.

Do any of you have any experiences/wisdom to share?

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[wolfshades]

I would treat this on a “need to know” basis. In my case, I was running a meeting recently when I had to come to a full stop. I had lots of thoughts but just couldn’t access them. It became embarrassing, as I struggled to find the information that was *there* but just not *there right now*.

After the meeting, I spoke one-on-one with a couple of my staff, letting them know just a little bit about what was going on. Neither of them seemed all that concerned about it and in retrospect,probably didn’t need to know after all. If you’re a control freak as I am though, hitting a speed bump like that is pretty disconcerting. I figured “forewarned is forearmed”. Obviously I was going to find coping mechanisms so as to avoid future occurrences like that but there are just going to be times when you’re prepared out the ying-hang and *still* something like this is going to happen.

And of course you’ll run into the odd person who believes that ADD and ADHD are just fantasies, used by people to excuse themselves. One of my employees expressed a little doubt. I let it pass though – no sense trying to convert the unconvertable.

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[ADDled]

I don’t know about your workplace, but I would be very careful about what you divulge to you subordinates about your “gift”. Being almost twice the age of most of my co-workers, it’s very interesting to see the group dynamics when they perceive they can find a promotion in it somewhere. A few will exploite any opportunity they can: compassion and understanding are just words in a dictionary.

While I have disclosed to my supervisor, and manager, and director, I haven’t to my co-workers. The management team has already marginalized me, I don’t want that from my peers.

If you among the lucky ones and have built up a rapport with your subordinates and you feel it may improve your situation than go for it. You are blessed.

Hope this helps…and good luck.

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[ellamama]

Thanks, wolfshades and ADDled. Reading your responses has made me think through some of my challanges. Among them is balancing my silly, playful self with (supposedly) being in authority. It works fine with some, but I’ve had some others who’ve greeted my apparently casualness with the idea that I’m incompetent (did I spell that right?). I suppose in most instances I need to just be able to tell folks, “I need you to do X.” and not explain “because if I tried to do it the client would have to wait 3 months” or “if I did it, this simple table would have errors”, etc.

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