Trust that you are staying healthy along with your near and dear ones. The pandemic seems to be invading lives that were following all protocols for majority of the last two years, and just started to drop guard. Please stay vigilant for your safety as well as safety of everyone around you.
The title, as rewarding and intriguing as it might read, has lot to it between the words. One common question that comes up with every professional at work:
What is one’s basic responsibility?
According to me, responsibility in itself is a basic aspect of everyone’s job description. Be it an employee in the lower most rung of the corporate pyramid to the one in the highest level. Without responsibility, there is no profession, nor is there someone who can call himself or herself a ‘professional’.
A lot of mist forms when we try to define ‘responsibility’ based on the immediate vicinity of our work domain. Once we start our journey to becoming a professional, every single one of us undertakes an oath to self that we own complete responsibility for our growth, and career path. Nobody else is in charge. The words, “I am in charge of my career” must resonate inside everyone’s heads. Not with a tone of arrogance, but with a tone of authority. When this resonates with a tone of authority, it takes along with it all the aggression and dissolves it substantially. Once aggression dissolves, the real character and passion comes to the fore.
Imagine, not taking responsibility to ensure that you deliver your best every single time you carry out a task, responsibility to learn every time you embark on a journey into an unknown territory, responsibility to ensure integrity in all of your actions! The results would be disastrous. At the end of it all, they all impact only on one aspect: Career!
Leaders and managers must come to terms with understanding that as much as it is important to address work related topics with priorities, there is only as much that can be executed within the given working hours available in a day.
Sanjeev Bhushan
Now, getting down to the title of the article:
What is going over & beyond?
A lot of misinterpretation goes about with this concept at both working level as well as with budding leaders, and managers. Managers & Leaders are very different from each other in their mode of operation and actions which is why they are considered as separate categories here. However, both of them are very much required based on the situation existent at a particular moment in time. A great leader can always be a great manager, but a great manager cannot always be a great leader.
Over time, in many working cultures, it has been a common practice to extend working hours in order to complete tasks. However, does this make one going over and beyond their original call of duty? No. It just makes one highly inefficient, incapable of managing tasks, unable to plan activities, very poor at execution, and a poor decision maker. Leaders and managers must come to terms with understanding that as much as it is important to address work related topics with priorities, there is only as much that can be executed within the given working hours available in a day. Every employee is entitled to a life outside of the organisation, everyone has a family to cater to, everyone has rights over their personal time and decide completely on what to do during their personal time. Some weak leaders & poor managers tend to point towards the personal commitments based on marital status, residing away from family, etc and request employees to stay back after work hours.
Going over and beyond, unfortunately is not dependent on time, but on involvement outside one’s own responsibility.
When you see an issue that is about to happen, alert the people responsible, and accordingly adapt your actions without anyone telling you : Going over & beyond.
While executing a task, you need to complete an action belonging to someone else, but you can execute it as well as the other person. In case you are saving some additional costs due to potential travel of the alternate resource, and saving time by executing it yourself by ensuring correctness by discussing with the responsible person: Going over and beyond.
Going over and beyond, unfortunately is not dependent on time, but on involvement outside one’s own responsibility.
Sanjeev Bhushan
Staying beyond work hours, completing a task that is supposed to finish 2 days later, and sending out a mail at midnight to colleagues requesting for feedback : Not going over and beyond.
Having to stay back on deadline day until midnight to complete the task, & communicate the same due to delays during execution : Not going over & beyond.
A great leader can always be a great manager, but a great manager cannot always be a great leader.
Sanjeev Bhushan
Knowing where to stop & when to stop might be the final difference between going beyond & going over (burn-out). One must know the art of saying No. Not necessarily reject in all situations, but refuse assertively & politely. Read more about the art of saying No in one of my previous article, Yes vs No.
In case you were able to relate to the post & it helped you improve, it is a token of happiness for us. Do go through our other articles which might help you further:
Mind Spa by SanKom - Life lessons for a lifetime 
Rightly differentiated the going beyond..
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank You Ranjith 🙌🏼 Glad that you could relate to it
LikeLike
Wonderful article. Pls send to our current bosses too 😁
LikeLiked by 2 people