If you truly mean to attain the vision you have set for yourself and your organization, you can’t just be organized. You’ve got to be strategic.
It’s the Second Practice of Personal Leadership: Find Focus.
Joe Pinto, Senior Vice President–Technical Support Systems at Cisco, explains.
“It’s important that leaders sit back and plan. My leadership team and I get together every three to four months. We sit down, and we have a couple of key stakeholders sit down with us, and we plan out where we’re going. We spend probably one fourth of the time looking back over the last three or four months, and three-quarters of the time looking forward to what decisions we’re making to run the business. [Our organization] is such a big engine that if we decide to turn the ship when we see the island, it’s too late.”
Planning ahead like this is critical, whether it’s for work (like when you’re planning your team’s direction), professional goals (like your own career advancement strategy), or a personal desire (like the way you want to experience the new year). It’s a commitment. It’s a sacrifice. It’s also a leadership “best practice.” So if you want to be a great leader, you’d best practice.
Again, here’s Joe’s three-part formula for finding focus:
1. Every three or four months, schedule a planning session.
2. Look back over the previous quarter.
3. Look forward to the decisions ahead.
I’ve created a guide that you can use every time you use this process. It’s called the Focus Areas Planning Guide, and it’s available (completely free!) at www.TheInnerEdge.com. Just click here.
Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. The eCourse includes a set of brief leadership practices illustrated with the words and experience of a real business leader who exemplifies the practice. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Email joelle@pillar-consulting.com now for more information.