Leadership Effectiveness: Optimize Your Leadership for 2019 and Beyond

Let’s all take a little bit of time (or as much as needed) to think about how we might lead better in 2019. Here are six practices you can institute to have an even more effective 2019:

Put the most important items in your calendar in ink now
- Kids’ soccer, softball, etc., games
- Important couple events…anniversaries, date nights
- Family summits, aka Mom and Dad planning meetings
- Annual physical
- Financial planning
- Team one-on-ones
- Team meetings/retreats
- “White space” for reflection and strategic thinking
- Regular review of your progress against goals, expectations, development (and industry metrics)
- What else do you need to track?
Time allocation and time management
- Reduce the length of all meetings by 25 to 30%
- Reduce the number of meetings by 20 to 33%
- Do only the things you need to do and delegate the rest to others
- Link your time with key goals and outcomes for the organization (are you spending the most time on strategic priorities?)
- What would be the most important change in your time allocation?
Kick off the new year with an inspirational team meeting
- Successes and learnings from 2018
- Review/renew your mission and values
- New, inspiring vision for 2019
- Teamwork – involve others so that everyone owns the year’s successes
- What stories will particularly inspire your team?
Set your goals and communicate them clearly
- Goals linked to vision and values
- Goals linked to meaning and mission
- Accountability linked to goals
- How can you ensure buy-in to goals at all levels in the organization?
Focus on relationship building inside and outside the organization
- It is all about the people
- What relationships will be particularly important in 2019?
And, remember to DREAM – this will be the best use of the “white space” on your calendar. Who knows what new strategies, innovations, directions, brainstorms will come to you if you open up to them?