As a new leader, you will need support and sparring
At times, the leadership role can feel lonely, but you are not alone — and fortunately, there are plenty of places where you can find support. Read more here.
By Pernille Yde Planck, January 2021
As a leader, it can be difficult to determine how to best divide your time among various leadership tasks.
Do you feel like you spend all your time on operational tasks, leaving little time for development?
One key factor in your success as a leader is how you allocate your time. It is about achieving the right balance between the leadership tasks relative to the role you need to succeed in.
To assess your own leadership balance, you can try an exercise by asking yourself these questions:
The answers will vary from leader to leader and from organization to organization. As a tool to gain clarity on your answers, you can draw a circle on a piece of paper and write management, leadership, and expert – these are the three components of the leadership role.
You might think the circle should be divided into three equal parts, but that depends on the actual distribution of tasks in your leadership role. Therefore, try assigning percentages to how much time you currently spend on management, leadership, and the expert role, respectively. Then draw a new circle and assign percentages to how much time you would like to devote to each of these three tasks in the future.
The key is to find a balance among these three elements that fits your particular leadership role.
If you are unsure what the three leadership tasks specifically cover, here is a brief overview of what management, leadership, and the expert role entail:
The management component of the leadership role is where you work with setting goals, establishing priorities, and following up on results. You ensure that everyone is aware of deadlines, ambitions, etc., and you delegate goals, tasks, and the necessary authorities.
You make it clear to all employees what the requirements and expectations are for completing each task, that there is concrete and operational planning, and that the necessary information is always available so that your employees can perform their tasks.
In management, you must also be alert to whether the organization needs adjusting. For example, you might need an extra employee for a short or longer period, or certain tasks may need to be trimmed. Perhaps there are tasks you must decline if additional resources cannot be provided. In other words, in the management role, you continuously adapt and ensure that the necessary resources are in place to meet expected goals.
If you compare the leadership balance to driving a car, management is like keeping an eye on the dashboard. Is the car running smoothly? Are any warning lights on? Are we driving at the right speed? Everything is as it should be – that is the management part.
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Leadership is about ensuring focus, engagement, and development. Continuing with the car metaphor, leadership is more about the direction. It’s one thing to have fuel and passengers safely buckled in, but where are you headed, and is everyone on board?
In this part of your leadership role, you ensure that the right tasks are being completed in line with the strategy. You do this by making sure that employees understand the strategy and know what it means for their specific tasks.
Motivating and developing employees is also part of leadership. This means creating opportunities for your employees, taking initiatives that are motivating, and fostering engagement.
You also secure a team culture where the workplace is a good environment and where employees stay and deliver excellent results.
An element of leadership is also to keep an eye on potential skill gaps that might arise, for example, when the strategy eventually moves in a new direction.
Most leaders also have some form of operational work. This is the part of the circle we call expert. It is where you keep yourself updated in your specific area of expertise and personally tackle tasks as an expert.
In this role, it’s important to be aware that you should not be the department’s sole expert—even if you have some operational duties. You might have an employee with even greater expertise who can devote all their time to tasks that require specialized knowledge.
None of the three elements in the leadership balance is more important or better than the others. They are all crucial, and as mentioned at the beginning, it’s about finding the right balance among these three task elements relative to the role you need to succeed in your organization as an effective leader.
If you’d like feedback on the exercise, speak with your employees and/or your own managers about the balance. Perhaps your manager can guide you toward a better balance than what you have today.
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