Scatter Brained Leadership Lesson #1

I recently found myself in an interesting leadership ‘mudslide’.  It seemed like everything coming across my desk was screaming, “I’m a priority!  Handle me now!!”  The reality, as you know or guessed, was that very little was truly so.  If your business day is anything like mine, you walk into a whirlwind as soon as you wake up and get out of bed.  Each day is packed with lots to get done and seemingly too little time or too few resources to accomplish it all.  Demands are flying toward us at 150 mph, data and information is flying at around 200 mph from every direction, and our white board – with all of our great ideas and priorities – seems to be flying away at 250 mph!  We get totally spun around by the whirlwind sometimes, and that’s when it’s easy for non-essentials to slide onto the front burner – for us to become our own worst enemy and apply Scatter Brained Leadership Lesson #1:  Be so busy and dizzy that you can’t discern between a real strategic priority and a distraction.

Leaders that lose focus of their true strategic priorities can quickly begin chasing too many rabbits and become ineffective.  Their teams and organizations usually pay a hefty price for that.  We need to keep the main thing the main thing.  I know, easier said than done.  So how do we do it?  We need to constantly ask, “Is this so important that failing to achieve it will render all of our other accomplishments inconsequential?  Will everything we’ve done this month/quarter/year go up in smoke because we didn’t get this thing done?”

I know it seems too simple, but simple isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  And I, for one, particularly like an oasis of simple among the crazy complexity surrounding it!  These questions are my acid test when I seem to be looking at too many – or conflicting – priorities.  This obviously won’t resolve every instance where the whirlwind obscures our strategic vision, but I know it’s saved my bacon a few times.  Instead of applying Scatter Brained Leadership Lesson #1, let’s apply a little discerning questioning instead.