One of my clients suffers from executive delegation syndrome. This occurs when successful leaders can’t get out of their own way by not delegating sufficiently.
As leaders advance professionally, often into executive level functions, they can’t keep doing everything they were doing up until this point. You may have been an account executive, for example, and now you lead a department of 14 accounts executives.
One of the things that helps people make progress is to consciously think about what they know now that they didn’t know last week (month, year, etc.). Incremental knowledge – no matter how small or big it may be – accumulates and adds to your professional development.
Why not ask this question at your weekly team meetings? If you take time to have a quick round robin, you may be pleasantly surprised with what you hear.
Are you suffering from too much work, not enough time, and (heaven forbid) your employees need guidance to do their jobs?
Good news, bad news, the same news: Get used to it.
You know the cliché: you can’t see the forest through the trees. One manifestation of this in the workplace is that when people are severely overworked, they can get distracted by minutia and miss the important things.
One of the best antidotes to the forest-trees issue is to keep your important goals at the top of your mind. If you are feeling sidetracked and are struggling making decisions, you can ask, “How does doing this help me achieve my goals?”
Famous last words. How many times has someone said that they would get back to you, complete a task, follow up on a lead, or get some information to you. . . and you get old waiting to hear something?
Now, in fairness, there have certainly been times when you’ve not followed up on things, so before you start ranting about everyone else, you might want to look in the mirror.
Did that title get your attention? Alas, I’m not talking about romantic encounters, rather, this is about appreciation. This being the “love month” – highlighted by Valentine’s Day on Saturday – makes this topic worth elevating.
Be generous in expressing appreciation to colleagues, team members, and clients – and anyone who provides service that you value. This can be as simple as “thank you.”
Many leaders practice leadership by achieving consensus. They are challenged by the actual process of achieving consensus and feel satisfied when the various parties come to agreement.
Consensus is a worthy approach in many, but not all, cases. The process breaks down when the various stakeholders begin to venture down that well-travelled road, WIIFM (what’s in it for me).
How did you fare during last weekend’s blizzard? If you live in much of the United States, you experienced quite a storm. While many of us are ready to move on, the disruption offers a few useful reminders about leadership.
One lesson is about how leaders respond when outcomes fall just short of expectations. Competitive people strive to come in first whenever possible. A snow record isn’t the same as a sales record, but the dynamic is similar. When a team narrowly misses a target or loses an important deal, some leaders focus on learning—what went wrong, what can improve, and what to do differently next time. Others look for ways to reframe or rationalize the result. The question is not whether the goal was missed, but what the leader chooses to emphasize. What tone are you setting?
Do your people have clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations? If they don’t, it’s not just inefficient—it’s a recipe for predictable breakdowns. When people lack clarity about what they’re accountable for and how success is measured, they’re effectively operating in the dark.
Consider these common scenarios
Everyone walks around with stories about what they can’t do or won’t try. These narratives are usually based on limiting beliefs. Some of these beliefs stem from experiences they had years ago; others are concocted based on false assumptions strung together more recently.