I recently took two weeks off from work. I didn’t answer any emails, nor did I turn on my work phone once. No one pressured me to work more, or to come in on one of the days I marked off. All this despite the fact that my project’s critical design review occurred halfway through my vacation.

My absence was inconvenient of course, but I put together my slides early, a colleague presented them, and other folks handled technical issues that came up. I returned on Monday and picked things back up. I hear the review went reasonably well and I didn’t have a bunch of fires to put out right away.

I’ve always thought one of the marks of a good leader is that she can disappear for a couple weeks and the team keeps up good work in her absence. Extending that, the mark of a good team is that your teammates are willing to help others out and pick up the slack when needed to ensure the success of a project.

I sure do have a great team.