Being Organized Helps Our Leadership

I received appreciative feedback from my recent short article about timeliness and responsiveness. The message hit home with many leaders, to some a reminder, to others a realization that they need to better manage their time and attention so they may be more helpful to their people.

Just this week, in facilitating a 360 leadership assessment for a fine leader, it was offered that she has a wonderful attitude, always wants to be helpful, yet at times is not as quick as we would like.  She has so much on her mind, and if she were more organized her willingness to help and her responses would likely be more timely.

Her team members believe that being better organized would take her mind off so many things and enable her attention to focus on what is truly important.

Being organized sends a positive image, which is so important as leaders are signal senders. We want to send an image that we have it all together, that we can and will focus on what is most important, not things that keep us busy and may not have the most beneficial impact.

Fact is, being organized enables us to be more productive, set an example for our team members and impress our external clients – to more efficiently manage our time.

This will take work, and is well worth it. There are resources to help us, e.g., useful articles and books, as well as coaches.

While still on the subject of timeliness, we should all realize the incredible value of being early. Being the first to a meeting demonstrates our desire. It worked for me numerous times when clients and prospective clients told me that my arriving early impressed them and they sensed my strong desire to serve them well.

There is a principle which I borrowed from a great leader years ago and wrote on a card which I keep in my wallet, “The key to my success is that I always try to be 15 minutes early.”

These are goals which will help us be a highly effective and admired leader, to be:

• Timely in responding to emails, phone message and all other requests

• Well organized so we are most efficient and productive, giving our attention to what is truly important

• 15 minutes early, always

We hope this short essay and its messages are helpful. Let’s remember,

When leadership improves, everyone wins