Welcome to Friday 411, Issue #082. In 4 minutes, with 1 insight and 1 action, you’ll stop being a bottleneck to your team.
1 Insight
Leaders struggle with Capacity because their position carries double burdens.
Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the weight on your shoulders? If so, you’re not alone.
As a leader, you carry double burdens. You:
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- Manage your own responsibilities AND guide and support others to accomplish theirs.
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- Manage yourself AND lead your team.
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- Manage your time AND are accessible to your team.
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- Complete your tasks AND ensure your team completes theirs.
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- Solve your own challenges AND help your team overcome theirs.
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- Keep your team focused on their priorities AND align with organizational goals.
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- Focus on your own development AND ensure every person on your team is growing.
Because of these double burdens, many leaders don’t have the time, energy, and attention to lead others well. When this happens, you’re struggling with Capacity.
I (Garland) was recently a guest on The Daily Leader Podcast with Brad McDonald and Taylor Jessup.
We discussed the 7 Leadership Traits that Solve 95% of Company Problems. Capacity is the third trait.
During the podcast interview, Brad asked me to unpack Capacity. Most of the time when companies talk about Capacity, they mean the amount of work that employees can accomplish in a certain amount of time or leveraging the time and talents of the people you lead. Those are great definitions for production capacity.
But leadership Capacity focuses on how you maximize your time, energy, and attention so you can lead others well.
If you don’t develop your leadership Capacity, you’ll get stuck taking on more and more work. Your team’s productivity will diminish. You’ll become the bottleneck of your team. They’ll feel frustrated, and you’ll become overwhelmed and exhausted.
Make sure you watch until the end because I’ll share the best tool to help leaders deal with the surprises, interruptions, and emergencies.
You can watch the full episode on YouTube or listen on Spotify.
Click here to subscribe to The Daily Leader podcast.
To learn more about how to increase your Leadership Capacity, click here.
1 Action
Look at next week’s schedule and plan “office ours” to be available for surprises, interruptions, and emergencies.
