THOUGHTS ON LEADERSHIP #4 - FOCUS YOUR TIME.

Early in my career, when I was given my first opportunity in a leadership position, it was a total disaster. Fortunately, I learned much from that failure. It taught me more about what leadership is (or isn't) than I ever learned in school or had observed in the corporate world. I made the false assumption that my role was to be fighting every battle to the death. No issue was too small or big, I needed to win at all costs, I felt the need to be the lead of every project, be in every meeting, have my DNA on everything. That behavior could not be further from the truth as a leader and is destructive to you and your team.

A leader's job is not to sit in four-hour meetings where details are hashed out. A leader's job is to empower people to have those meetings, hash things out, so they can make a reasoned proposal for your consideration. You may want to parachute in occasionally to keep providing context, focus and direction to the team (Episode # 3 – Share Information), but let them do the work and come to their conclusion and recommendation.

A leader must manage their time, add value where necessary, but not micro-manage. A light-hand is usually best with the people you interact with. You will be interfacing with other departments in your firm, other groups within the industry, vendors, consultants, etc. along with travelling and working on your own projects. You cannot be everything to everybody. 

That doesn't mean that you don't have an open-door policy, or that you don't interact with people. Not at all. People are looking to you for leadership and need to see your focus on the important things, understand how to prioritize, and ask questions. They will learn from you. If they see you doing it, they will begin focusing their time more effectively and better outcomes will be the result.​​