Leaders and Time Management

In Joseph Maciariello's essay on Peter Drucker's perspectives on leadership effectiveness, he discusses that one effective executive practice is time management. He goes on to state that time is expendable and once it is gone, you can't get it back. The essay talks about some practical techniques for time management such as keeping a log of how your time is used during the workday, but I was struck that Marciariello did not speak about effective delegating skills. From my perspective, the demands on leaders and the break-neck pace of today's workplace demand that leaders effectively work through others. Inability or unwillingness to do so is simply a recipe for failure. By prioritizing tasks, deciding what others can do and then delegating those tasks to the appropriate individuals, the leader can reduce the exorbitant demands on his time.



According to the web site Time-Management-Guide.Com, "delegation skill is your ability to get things done by using work and time of other people." The article claims that delegating is a critical survival skill for leaders. http://www.time-management-guide.com/delegation-skill.html

This web article talks about identifying win-wins, where the leader is ability to delegate and reduce time demands (win) and by doing so he provides an opportunity for an employee or work group to perform a new task which can be a valuable learning experience (win). This win-win approach creates momentum by empowering employees to do new and challenging things. These "stretch" assignments benefit the organization in the long term and help the leader to make better use of time. As with any assignment, there must be the proper goal-setting and feedback mechanisms in place to provide the conditions for success.


Another important condition for success is delegating to the right individual. A leader does this by truly knowing his employees. In First, Break All the Rules, Buckingham and Coffman describe "one of the signs of a great [leader] is the ability to describe, in detail, the unique talents of each of his or her people - what drives each one, how each one thinks, how each builds relationships."



In Execution, Bossidy and Charan state that "getting things done through others is a fundamental leadership skill...if you can't do it, you're not leading." Yet, many new leaders struggle with this basic skill. Why is that? It seems to me that self-confidence and trust come into play. If the leader is insecure and feels that he must control or do everything himself in order for things to be done right, delegating isn't going to happen. Likewise, the leader must have confidence to trust his employees with important assignments that they are given to do. One important way for the leader to develop this trust is to truly know his people as I talked about previously.


And like all skills, delegating can be learned and it must be practiced. As with a sport or learning the lines for a play, the more you practice the skill the better and more comfortable you will become performing it. Delegating is one of many skills in the leader's tool kit and it must be practiced effectively for the leader to make the best use of his time. Frankly, with the mind-boggling demands on most leaders, delegating is a means to maintain one's sanity!

The History of the MBTI

After taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) for class, I was interested in learning a little bit more about how it was developed and when.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a tool that helps individuals identify their basic personality type preferences. The 16 type preferences are based on four dimensions:

• Extroversion (E) -- Introversion (I)



• Sensing (S) -- Intuition (N)



• Thinking (T) -- Feeling (F)



• Judging (J) -- Perceiving (P)

All types are considered equal and there are no "right" or "wrong" types. The MBTI is based on the work of Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung and his book, Psychological Types, published in 1921. Jung was a disciple of Freud's but he ultimately distanced himself from some of Freud's theories.

More on Jung: http://www.carl-jung.net/biography.html

Extensive follow-on research to Jung's work was conducted by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine Briggs. Briggs had been intrigued since her youth with the differences in personality that people exhibit. She was determined to understand the differences and health people value the differences in order to improve or enhance relationships among people. By the 1940's Myers and Briggs had developed the MBTI tool, expanding on Jung's concept of psychological types and translating the work into something more understandable to the layperson.

Decades of data collection and analysis have validated the MBTI tool. The tool was administered to family members, employees of a company the Myers worked for and to an entire class of Swarthmore College. Many of the original research notes of Myers are housed at the University of Florida. Today the instrument is used throughout the world and it has been translated into many different languages. It is used in business settings, marriage counseling, individual counseling among its applications. Others have built upon the work of Myers and Briggs. An example is Please Understand Me by Keirsey and Bates.

I am an ISFJ - I took the MBTI about 15 years ago and my recent taking re-validated my type preference. I am thinking about sharing my type with the employees who work for me directly and am also thinking about suggesting to my boss that the leadership team all take the MBTI if they haven't done so recently.

The MBTI is a fascinating tool that I personally think is very valid and useful. For those in leadership positions, it is important to understand yourself intimately in order to be a good leader as Kouzes and Posner have pointed out. The MBTI provides valuable insights and can help a leader understand his/her preferences. Ideally, the information can help individuals in the workplace understand differences and look for ways to complement the differences. For example, different types will have different approaches to solving a problem. Different perspectives can be a powerful way to collectively solve a problem. Differences should be viewed as a strength and not a weakness.

More on MBTI:

http://www.myersbriggs.org/

http://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/mbti-overview.htm

The Wisdom of Grace Hopper

In The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner describe leaders as "fundamentally restless. They don't like the status quo. They want to make something happen. They want to change the business-as-usual environment." Smart leaders know that creativity and innovation can flourish in an environment where individuals are encouraged to push the boundaries, share their ideas, and take risks.



Smart leaders know that risk-taking can lead to creative breakthroughs. By providing a work culture that supports experimentation or trial and error - with a mindset that much can be learned from the false starts and mistakes - innovation can be hastened. Kouzes and Posner describe this environment as a "climate for learning."


I thought about risk-taking and leadership and came across some classic quotes from Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, a true pioneer in science and leadership. She was an innovator and a change agent.


Admiral Hopper was the first women to be awarded a PhD in Mathematics from Yale University. She later was commissioned into the Navy during World War II. She also worked at Harvard University, becoming the first programmer of the Navy's Mark I computer (a project my current employer helped to sponsor).




The Mark I Computer was invented in 1944. It was literally of roomful of noisy metal parts and was 55 feet long and 8 feet high. It was used by the U.S. Navy for gunnery and ballistic calculations.

She later was the co-inventor of the COBOL programming language which allowed computers to respond to words instead of numbers. Hopper frequently joked that this innovation was necessary because she couldn't balance her checkbook. Later in her professional career, she became the first woman Naval Reservist to be recalled to active duty. Her professional career culminated with her promotion to Rear Admiral by presidential appointment in 1983.




I first heard of Rear Admiral Hopper because of a 60 Minutes profile in that same year. I am not a technical guy and I wasn't impressed by the military, but after all these years I remember how impressive she was.


Rear Admiral Hopper was a great advocate for innovation and breaking the status quo. She frequently spoke on the subject as she toured throughout the U.S. speaking at conferences and professional meetings. Here are some of her famous quotes:

• "It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission."

(Lou Gerstner doesn't think organizations that operate this way can sustain success)

• "The most dangerous phrase in the language is, "We've always done it this way."


• "A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are for. Sail out to sea and do new things."

How often to we as leaders and as employees get too comfortable? Do we get complacent? Is our competitive advantage in jeapardy? Have we stopped raising the bar for organizational performance? Are we providing an environment where our employees can stretch and "build a little, test a little?" These are great questions in light of Grace Hopper Murray's statements above!

More on Rear Admiral Hopper: http://gracehopper.org/2009/about/about-grace-hopper/

The Point Guard Analogy

I'm a huge college basketball fan and I frequently relate leadership or other workplace challenges to hoops. As I thought about leadership topics to write about, it occurred to me that a team's point guard, in many ways, can be a metaphor for leadership. The "floor general" must demonstrate leadership qualities that parallel those that an organizational leader must possess.



I've heard many coaches extolling the qualities of a particularly gifted point guard by referring to some of the following attributes:

• Able to see the entire floor


• Able to see two or three passes ahead of the next pass


• Able to create and get others involved

Adept at communicating verbally and non-verbally with teammates

A steady hand when the pressure is on

These attributes readily translate to some of the qualities an organizational leader must possess to be effective.



Effective organizational leaders must be able to see the entire floor - the big picture and all of its moving pieces. By seeing several passes ahead, the leader is a visionary. She knows the ultimate destination and can visualize the passes (steps) necessary to get there. She is able to create or foster creativity within the workplace and do so collaboratively. The leader is a strong communicator and ensures effective two-way communication up and down the organization. She is also the individual that others look to in difficult times to provide direction and a calming influence. She provides the focus in the face of adversity.



An effective point guard has confidence in his abilities, understands who he is as a player, his strengths and weaknesses, and earns the confidence of each of his teammates. Similarly, the organizational leader must display a quiet confidence and must understand herself in order to be a good leader. Kouzes and Posner talk about how, as a leader, you must "first know who you are" in order to act with integrity.

Whether the analogy is basketball player or orchestra conductor, many parallels can be drawn to the work of the leader. By thoughfully examining the analogy, the leader can reflect on her style and identify opportunities to improve her leadership qualities.

The best point guard just wins - it's not about them personally - it's about the team and its success. The best organizational leaders have this same perspective!

Here is an article that takes a different spin on leadership using basketball as the analogy:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3616/is_199606/ai_n8740493/

Good Leaders Stay Connected to Their Employees

My boss is a voracious reader (history-related books especially) and loves the Sunday NY Times and Washington Post (and the WSJ!!!). I mentioned to him my blog assignment and he told me about a column in the Times that he has enjoyed. It's called the Corner Office and I decided to check it out.

In the August 30th NY Times Corner Office column, Deborah Dunsire, CEO of Millennium in Cambridge, Massachussetts, spoke of the importance of "walking around" to counter the "processed and managed" information that a CEO is unusually given. She speaks of the trap of the ivory tower mentality which causes a gap between the CEO's perceptions of the workplace and reality. In the previous Sunday edition of the Times, Brian Dunn, Chief Executive of Best Buy, described staying connected by calling the company's call center, visiting stores and talking to associates about what is working and what's not. This got me to thinking about how leaders can best interact with their constituents.

Management by Walking Around (MBWA) perhaps has become a cliche. The concept is certainly not brain surgery. Cliche or not, it's a sound practice. It's a practical way that a leader can connect with their employees - it keeps the leader grounded. Of course, employees are very perceptive. If the leader is going through the motions, employees will pick up on this in a heartbeat. But if the leader is truly sincere, employees will appreciate the interest shown and the leader can gain valuable insight into the health and pulse of the organization. So, what are some questions the wandering leader may want to ask:

• What are you working on today?


• What about your work most excites you?


• What is really bothering you or causing pain?

Answers to this questions can be potentially very telling. Many of us have had the experience of having a senior leader show up at the worksite unannounced, resulting in stress and concern ("who screwed up?"). What a sad commentary that the leader is only visible when there is a problem.

So MBWA is a very practical, easy concept for leaders to put in place? Why do some leaders choose to stay in the tower or not make interactions with their associates a priority? Why do some leaders choose to manage by email - yes, many do. Leaders would do well to examine how they spend their time and re-shuffle their priorities to stay connected to their employees by walking around. To do so, they send a powerful message to their workforce and the power of the connections will be immeasurable!

Here are some simple ideas I suggest for incorporating MBWA into a leader's routine:

• Make it a priority - allocate specific time each week to walk around whether it be a 1/2 hour each day or an hour every Friday morning


• Make plans to visit specific areas and rotate in order to cover your organization entirely


• For you introverts out there, push your comfort zone. The purpose is defeated by interacting with only those you know or are comfortable with


• Be yourself, be genuine


• When you return to the office, allocate time to take notes on what you learned and make note of action items that have been identified


• Follow through! If the water cooler on the first floor isn't cooling and you committed to getting it fixed, make sure it happens.

Good leaders stay connected to their employees...