While it’s easy to say that I have learned a lot in the past 8.5 years, there are a few very real and tangible lessons that I have learned—sometimes painfully—that have really shaped who I am as a leader. Some of these lessons are very counter cultural to the way most people think about leadership and at times, created a lot of anxiety for me personally.
The first and probably most important lesson has to do with creating a reality where you can maximize your time spent on your most important work. To do this means you need to define what work is your most important. Often, there exists a struggle internally for any business owner or entrepreneur about working in your business vs working on your business. Reframing this thinking is important. People today like to talk about how you balance this tension vs what stage the business is in. I think it makes more sense to look at the work you must do from the lens of “work you should be doing” vs “work others could be doing.” In this way, the life cycle of the business no longer matters. What ends up getting in the way is not the ability to spend enough time working on the business, that is just a symptom of a larger challenge: the fear of letting go.
People tend to have blinders on when looking at all that needs to be done and weighing that against what you should be doing and what others should be doing. The common pitfall here is thinking that a certain task would require a lot of training or other people just don’t get how to do it correctly. This lens looks at what you are doing from a perspective of why you shouldn’t delegate and empower others. When in reality the correct lens to evaluate this is: how can I delegate and empower someone else to own this?
Most leaders today define their relevance and level of importance to the organization based on how busy they are. People working 12-14 hour days while also coming into the office on the weekends wear this like a badge of honor. I can’t help but to cringe when I hear that someone is doing 70+ hours per week, and am left wondering, how is your relationship with your spouse, your family, your friends, what does the state of your physical and mental health look like?
Part of the reasoning behind this, is the underlying belief that knowledge is power and the more people need to rely on me the more valuable to the organization I am. While these are all natural tendencies and feelings, being conscious of them and realizing just how harmful this way of thinking can be is extremely freeing. Imagine just for a moment, what it would be like to have the goal of your team or the organization not needing you at all, not because you are no longer useful, but because you have empowered your team so much that they can function effectively and achieve goals without you. It’s because of this perpetuated belief in justifying one’s existence by how many hours they put in and how “busy they are” that reinforces the use of the wrong lens when evaluating what their most important work is.
Now, if I were to throw out this commonly held misconception and instead choose to evaluate my worth based on my overall impact to my teams professional development, being able to care for the whole person for everyone that reports to me, being a resource and removing obstacles for my team, and creating transparency and alignment on how each person contributes to the team achieving the larger goal, then the amount of hours I put in no longer matters, especially hours spent on tasks that do not contribute to the above goal.
Making this mental shift will at the same time allow a better perspective to be used when determining your most important work. Spending two weeks training one of your direct reports to own a task or function, is now a good investment, it frees up your time to spend on other things that are part of your “most important work,” and aids in the professional growth of that person. If you can successfully do this with meetings as well as tasks and functions, you will find yourself with much less work to do, and much more time to spend with your team.
This time now means that when someone needs to talk to you outside of a scheduled meeting, you can take that time. Taking that time to listen, ask questions, and provide feedback will enable you to better care for the whole person who is your charge. Conversations about their personal life might come up, or something that is bothering them at work. Take the time, listen to your team, help them wherever and however you can. Doing this from a genuine place of care and concern will reap massive benefits in terms of their buy-in and commitment. This will only be possible if you focus on your most important work, allow for free time in your schedule, and work to delegate and empower someone else to take anything that is not deemed your most important work.