It’s far too easy, and commonplace, to confuse leadership with management or general business activities. These activities are important and often need oversight or direct involvement from the more senior members of the organization and include things such as managing budgets, buying inventory, selling products, and dealing with disgruntled customers. These are all activities that leaders commonly take charge of, but they’re not what leaders should focus most of their attention to, or time on.
The image in this post is part of a slide deck from our training session titled “what exceptional leaders do”. A key characteristic all great leaders share is their ability to focus on what’s important and drive those results. Leaders are constantly busy dealing with the daily “squeaky wheels” and delivering against revenue targets, that they struggle to find the time to plan for the future of the business.
When it comes to the fundamentals of leadership, the things that leaders are actually responsible for doing, it seems many leaders suffer from inertia and procrastination. They use the excuse that other more urgent priorities demand their attention and they ring-fence their core leadership responsibilities with annual business planning and budget setting.
It’s hard for many leaders to let go of the day to day and focus on the future? There are two general reasons for this behaviour. The first is that a significant number of leaders achieve their position by excelling at other roles within their organization or their specific field of expertise and they are promoted away from their experience. For these leaders its not only easy to be drawn into operational matters, but it’s also familiar and comfortable. The second reason is a lack of understanding that the vision, mission, strategy and plans are never fixed and need to be constantly evaluated and adjusted.
Leaders need to trust their managers to take care of operations and remain focused on the future.
