Are You Doing $25/hr Tasks, When you Should Be Doing $25,000/hr Thinking?

In the last month I’ve worked with about a dozen coaching clients–most of whom struggle with some similar challenges as they move into more significant leadership roles.  Many leaders in first- or second-line management roles find themselves pulled between three poles: leadership, management, and production.  Across every industry I have worked with, people in the first few levels of management positions find themselves being pulled between these three forces.

Managers are expected to manage (direct and allocate resources, manage budgets, develops reports, provides systems and structure, hire, develop, and train staff, handle HR issues, etc.), to lead (provide vision, build trust, thinking strategically, coach and develop, create alignment, etc.), and finally, though in many cases this becomes the priority, to continue to produce (doing some of the work that they accomplished in their previous role).  Most managers/leaders find themselves out of balance–focusing too much of their time on managing and producing, and not enough on leading. The result is often long hours, a sense of never having enough time, feelings of being overwhelmed, and a lack of focus on what really matters.  Too often leaders find themselves over committed to doing $25/hr work when they should be focused on doing $250, $2,500, or even $25,000/hr thinking.

Here is a simple activity that we can all do to challenge ourselves to shift the focus of our work:

1. Ask yourself, how do you currently allocate your time between leading, managing, and producing?  For most of you, i suspect it looks something like this…

2. The second step is to ask  yourself, what would be the ideal allocation of time?  An added dimension is to also ask  your boss or others who would have a good perspective on your job.

   

   For most people, the ideal state, will look more like this…

   

3. In the final step, you begin to explore what would need to change to move from the current to the ideal state.

// What do you need to stop doing in order to make room for those $25,000/hr thoughts?