Balance Activity, Lead others and Develop Self
“Time and balance are the two most difficult things to have control over, yet they are both the things that we do control.” -Catherine Pulsifer
In any management or leadership role, we all have numerous areas to focus on and achieve balance in. Whether you are a manager or leader within an organisation, or a business owner juggling being technically brilliant with the added function of managing people we need to consciously focus on distributing our time, thoughts and energy in the right places at the right time.
Being in leadership roles in the past I know how challenging this can be, simple yes, easy no. Over the years I worked with hundreds of leaders and business owners all looking to achieve seamless leadership and I think this comes down to consciously balancing your energy and action.
Three key areas that stand out and are integrated include:
Leading others, developing self and managing activity (task).
We do many other things as leaders but we can cluster most things into these three buckets:
Leading Others:
This all about leading your team, setting the vision and co-creating the future. This part of your role is so important as this is the “people piece” that often gets left until last due to time constraints and sometimes lack of direction.
Leading others requires leading from the heart and mind with compassion, empowerment and vision. Co-creating your strategy with the team and organisation, coaching and mentoring your team to success and having agility around your thinking and application of this.
This area can be a struggle for many but is the differentiator or game changer when evolving from a manager to leader mindset.
Balance Activity (Task)
This is where we work within our team so to speak, not so much on it as when leading others. The focus here is task driven and it is imperative that the activity we are involved in contributes to our leadership vision. Tasks could include performance management, reporting, KPI development, running meetings and other day-to-day activities. The danger here is to not to keep doing things that you enjoy just because you enjoy them. Who could you empower to delegate to in order to free up time so you can leverage your leadership even more? Build a strengths based team and delegate according to strengths. From experience many managers and leaders have this bucket overflowing not leaving much time to lead their team and develop themselves. What will it cost you not to reduce activity in this area?
Developing Self
It is obvious you need to grow yourself to grow your leadership and still so many people do not invest in themselves. Growth is one of the six core needs of life and self growth in a leadership capacity can really give you wings. Leveraging self and taking the time to acquire new skills, new ways of thinking and broadening your industry knowledge is imperative in growing your leadership. You need to jealously protect this time and schedule it in as you would a meeting. I have seen leaders flourish when they invest in themselves as this has a direct impact on the team, organisation or business. These days the world is our oyster when it comes to “leadership development”. Podcasts, articles, books, webinars and workshops are all at our fingertips no matter where we work from.
Make sure you are learning something new every day that you can apply? If not what needs to change, where do you need to up skill and what will be the impact of this?
By balancing the amount and focus of specific activity you take on within the team, this will give you more time to develop your leadership and apply it in an impactful way, spending it on your team opposed to in it.
Renée Giarrusso, Lead Coach, Trainer and Founder of Metamorphose Consulting, works with high performing Executives and teams across a myriad of industries and hundreds of organisations and businesses. Her expertise in growing and developing capability and behavioural change around leadership, communication, transition and sales effectiveness leaves her clients inspired, re-energised and with improved results.
Contact us for a chat and see how we can collaborate with you for even more success!
