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Leadership and Priority

It is often said that the difference between people who are entrepreneurs and those who are not is that entrepreneurs are prepared to spend time doing the things that others aren’t prepared to do.

The same principle can be applied to leadership. True leaders are those that are prepared to do the things that they may not enjoy doing but know are vital to the success of their team, function or organisation.

Too often, managers spend all their time on dealing with and resolving urgent day to day issues. They are excellent “doers”, rushing around from one crisis to the next, solving problems and putting out fires.

The concept of urgency vs importance is vital in successful leadership. True leaders understand that the key to success is putting time aside to do their important (but not urgent) tasks. They ferociously protect this time, and do not let it be consumed by urgent tasks.

Effective leaders are very disciplined about this. They put aside time to think about the future, to plan the direction of their team, function or organisation, to develop the skills of their people, to walk the floor to find out what their staff truly think and feel. These activities are not urgent. In the short term, it doesn’t matter if they are not undertaken, and they can be easily left for another day. But what happens to managers who continually put off the tasks? Their team will become directionless, demotivated and disengaged, and the manager will end up rushing around busily putting out fires and dealing with issues that shouldn’t have arisen in the first place.

Making the step from “manager” to “leader” requires discipline – discipline to be prepared to put time aside for the important but sometimes less enjoyable tasks of a leader.