As anyone who is in or has ever been in a leadership role will tell you, there are no shortage of demands for your time, advice, insights and decisions to name just a few.
While on a personal level this might feel good that you are in demand. There are also hidden dangers too.
Firstly it is all too easy to lose focus and jump from one thing to the next. Secondly you can actually end up being the person who actually gets in the way of results. Thirdly you increase the likelihood of burn out.
There is one big issue with time that makes it a little different from other areas. It does not matter how senior you are, how much experience you have or how good you are. At the end of the day you have a cap on the amount of time you have available in any one day.
No one, can buy an upgrade.
As a result it’s absolutely vital that you focus on what really matters.
Of course you can only really focus on what matters if you are crystal clear about what is expected from you.
It might surprise you but in my experience many leaders lack clarity of what their success or otherwise will be measured against. If that is you make it a priority to discover what will be deemed being a success in your role.
Armed with your insights of what is expected of you as a leader you can start to determine which activities are most likely to contribute most to your results.
This will assist you in ensuring that you work first on those activities which are going to make the biggest impact on your results.
Of course there are always going to be times when even with the best laid plans you don’t quite achieve what you want.
At the same time this will hopefully be the exception rather than the norm.
