You are a rising leader in your organization. You are probably a few levels away from the top. The success of your team is critical to the division. It is counted on by the company. The company assumes you will accomplish your objectives. Those are already banked because you are assumed to be a productive leader.
It is up to you to execute the strategy and to get your team aligned and delivering results against that strategy. Assembling and developing the best team members is critical. Contributing to and guiding top to top customer relationships is a must. You are coach, counselor, and colleague all at the same time.
There is a slightly less glamorous dimension to your work that will go a long way toward establishing the culture you want for your team.
Your personal work routine as a productive leader.
Culture is often described as “the way things get done around here” in companies. It can be difficult to articulate your company’s culture in concrete terms, but everyone’s daily behavior reflects that culture, whether you like it or not. It is created in lots of small daily steps.
Your company has a culture, but does your team? It should, and that is really up to the way you conduct yourself and get work done on a daily and weekly basis. If your team can see your work habits, they will try to sync with those, perhaps even emulate them. If they can’t see your patterns, then they’ll spend much of their time trying to guess how to deliver what you need. Often, those guesses will be off target in content and off schedule in terms of time.
You can change that.
First, establish the daily work routine that is best for you. As a manager, it was important for me to separate different types of work into different day parts. I like to do my e-mails early in the morning. In fact, I like to clear my inbox from the previous day before others get to work in the morning. There are good reasons for me to do this.
Starting fast each day allows me the opportunity to establish my position, or ask critical questions, based on the last stopping point for that topic from the previous day. It allows me to reframe the problem I’m addressing before the new business day gets underway. That gets the topic going back in the direction I want, and gives me a chance to make sure we are staying aligned to our strategy.
Setting this daily baseline also builds an expectation with my team, that any open topic or problem from the previous day will be addressed by me before the new day gets underway. I’ve found this to be an effective counter to the tendency to try to manage everything in a constant stream. In my view, many managers get caught in the trap of trying to be overly responsive in our hyper connected world, and good decision making and good judgment suffers.
As a rule, I don’t respond to e-mails during the day unless they are mission critical, whether those come from above or within my team. I’ll even use this rule with customers but with a bit more discretion. The right response is almost always better than the fastest response. I scan every e-mail I receive throughout the day, and make a prompt judgment on whether it needs my immediate attention or not.
Second, I leave the vast majority of the day available for first person contact. I like to talk to people during the day, whether that is in meetings, one to one calls, or sales calls. I find that clearing out my e-mails and other similar daily tasks in the morning helps me clear my mind of those issues and focus on being completely present in my personal interactions. I am more attentive. I can think. I can relate.
It is important to limit the number of meetings you get pulled into. This is enough here for another article, but I want to touch on just a few things. Since you are running an important business unit, you’ll get pulled into meetings that touch on your business in the slightest way. It’s important for you to challenge the invitations you receive. Make sure your presence is critical to the successful outcome of that meeting, and insist that the organizer is specific about what is expected from you. Being there in case there is a question for you, or simply as a courtesy because the group might talk about your team, isn’t good enough. You’ll have to be clear on your own priorities first, then you can decide whether or not to attend that meeting.
Don’t fall into the trap of delegating meetings to your team members. The productive leader doesn’t do this. Sometimes that is a good idea, and your team member might even appreciate the recognition implied in that assignment. Remember, every internal meeting you or your team member attend takes away from face time with your customers, or interactions with each other. Defend those opportunities and only attend meetings where you bring an essential contribution.
Third, on a weekly basis, it’s important to set aside time for critical thinking. That includes your review of the week and your plan for the upcoming week. The typical time slots for weekly planning are at the beginning or end of the week, but it doesn’t need to be. What is important is that you have a dedicated hour or two where you can rise above your work and look down upon it to get organized and intentional about what you need to accomplish.
You also need a block of time during the week where you can think more strategically. You need to think about the big things. Your team. How well aligned are you and your team to your company’s strategy? What course corrections do you need to make? What fundamental changes are necessary? What does your business look like from the outside and how does that affect your strategic thinking? This time is sacred. You need to block it on your calendar and don’t let anyone interrupt you.
Most importantly, you need to tell your team how you work. Be clear with them. Don’t be a mystery to them and make them guess how to fit into your schedule. If you are clear with your team about your daily and weekly work routine, you’ll see a cool thing happen. Your team members will be more in sync with your routine. Daily e-mails that resemble stream of consciousness communication will diminish. Problems will be summarized concisely and delivered for you at the end of the day so you can respond the next morning. Higher order suggestions about how to execute the strategy and deliver results will come to you before your critical thinking weekly time block.
In short, your team will develop work habits that support your own, and you’ll get more and better work done more efficiently.
You’ll take a big step toward establishing your own positive culture on your team. People will take notice about how your team gets things done. Your personal brand will rise and people will want to work on your teams.
It may seem like a mundane thing to establish consistent daily and weekly work habits. Take your team’s productivity to the next level by establishing and communicating your work routine. There may be no more important element to guiding your team to deliver the results you are accountable for.
Remember, your company has already banked those results. The productive leader must deliver.
Lead well.
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