Leaders Who Overfish

Some metaphors open our eyes to the consequences of our choices and give us a fresh perspective on how we lead. One such analogy is what leaders can learn from the devastating practice of overfishing. 

Overfishing occurs when so many fish are caught in a given population that there are not enough adults left to breed and sustain a healthy population of future fish. It is a result of poor planning, greed, and allowing short-term needs to outweigh long-term necessity. 

The results of this practice can be catastrophic. In the ocean world, overfishing reduces stable food production, decreases the biodiversity of other marine life, and, over time, destroys coral reefs by upsetting the ecosystem of fish. Overfishing is both short-sighted and hugely problematic. 

Leaders can overfish without realizing it. The analogy fits quite well regarding how some leaders choose short-term benefit over long-term team growth and development. When leaders overfish, they rob the team of a sustainable future. 

Leaders can overfish in their teams in three primary ways, all of which are usually unintentional. First, they can lean too heavily on the same high performers, asking them to step up and sacrifice over and over. Rather than spreading the onerous tasks throughout the team, leaders who overfish prefer to go with their best people time and again and ask much less of everyone else. This depletes the energy of top performers and has the potential to burn them out. When high performers leave to escape this overfishing hell, the team suffers immensely. 

Another way leaders overfish is to give development experiences to those team members who don’t need them. Some assignments and projects are perfect for developing those with less experience. When they are given to high performers, those who need them most stagnate. Top performers may enjoy the easy success of a low-consequence project, but by executing them they rob less seasoned colleagues of critical learning. Saving developmental experiences for those who need them most grows team skill. 

Lastly, some leaders overfish by convincing their top performers that they shouldn’t spend the time coaching and mentoring their less successful colleagues. Insisting that high-performing team members focus exclusively on generating more results, leaders inadvertently eliminate an essential source of team development through peer coaching. 

When the rewards for top performers are one-dimensional and focused solely on results, they will ignore colleagues to focus on getting the job done. Results increase in the short term, but this overfishing undermines long-term team success, as many other colleagues don’t make the gains and improvements they should. 

Leaders who overfish aren’t doing their jobs. They sacrifice long-term benefits of team member growth and development for short-term gains. Their mindless greed stands in the way of sustainable team performance. Great leaders don’t overfish.