Take a step back

Every leader goes through a period when he / she is stretched for time, having to do too many things in a short time, being in the trenches etc. During this period it is important to get the hands dirtied, understand the ground issues.

But more often than not, even after this period some leaders tend to forget the necessity to take a step back. It is important that the leader should not forget the long term goal, while being in day to day operations.

The learning for me came during a mid-year review, in the form of a feedback. My supervisor told me that while I did a lot of things well, I could have achieved more if I concentrated on a few long term goals. While I had my long term goals in my mind, being in the trenches made me to forget them. 

As a leader, one should never lose the focus on the long term goal. It is very important to know what you want to do, where you want your teams to be in the long term, and every step should be taken keeping this goal in mind. But there will be hurdles, every day, every week, every month of the year , which will push you to take remedial actions that will make you lose focus. This happened to me and I did lose focus on certain key goals. But two important things helped me. My supervisor clearly spelt me my long term goals and the importance to take every step towards that. Also, I was in the right frame of mind to accept the fact that I had lost focus.

By taking a step back also helped me in another way. I moved myself out of certain regular tasks that were delegated to my direct reports, and helped them grow. It also gave me time which I used to do more things, and better things.

Next post will continue from here, on Delegation. Until then, take care...

ps: After a period when I was so caught up in being caught up on day to day to operations, my supervisor asked me "why dont you get your leads to do these so that you can take a step back". I proudly replied "there is a crisis and hence I need to be there". He replied, "That's fine, but when will your team know how to handle a crisis and when will you know if they can handle it without you". :)

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