If your work world of late is similar to that of most of my clients’, you’re busy. You’re really busy. Most days, you’ve come to claim success if you can even start, much less finish, just one item on your ever-growing To Do List. More often than not, your days are a blur of one meeting, email, text, chat message, or call after another, asking or demanding something of you. Someone needs an answer. Something needs your approval. Someone expects you to handle a problem they can’t or don’t want to handle themselves. You have come to feel as if you’re failing as a leader because everyone wants something of you, but you can’t do it all or be it all for everyone. You’re overwhelmed and you’re losing your focus.

You have come to feel as if you’re failing as a leader because everyone wants something of you, but you can’t do it all or be it all for everyone.

A leadership insight I regularly share with my clients is: One of your primary responsibilities as a leader is to clear roadblocks for your team so they can do their work. If your team members are stuck and can’t move forward, they’ll get frustrated. Their performance will drop and their morale will tank. Bottlenecks in productivity will start to pop up throughout your team. Other team members and departments are impacted, customers are impacted, morale is impacted, profits are impacted, etc. However, as the leader, when you use your position, authority, and experience to clear roadblocks for your team, answer their questions, develop their skills, focus their attention, and help clarify their priorities, you release their bottlenecks, enhance their productivity, and help lift their morale.

One of your primary responsibilities as a leader is to clear roadblocks for your team so they can do their work.

So how do you clear all of the roadblocks for your team? You don’t. You clear the ones that matter now. You do this by asking them a simple but impactful question when you meet with them as a team or individually. The question is intended to help you and them focus on what matters and reduce your mutual feelings of being overwhelmed or stuck. The question is: What do you need of me? Or, if you have several managers and team members reporting to you, ask specifically of each: What are the top two things you need of me? The question causes you and your team members to stop, think, and identify what are the limited, most important areas of your time and focus they need of you to move forward. It also enables you to hone in on where your team members are focusing their efforts to reaffirm they individually and collectively are focusing on the right priorities at the right time.

If you have several managers and team members reporting to you, ask specifically of each: What are the top two things you need of me?

Will this question eliminate the constant flurry of issues coming your way? No. But it will help you regain some control of your focus, time, and impact as a leader. Regain your focus.

Start asking your team to think, focus, and clarify what they need of you to be their best.

Copyright MMXXIV – Liz Weber, CMC, CSP – Weber Business Services, LLC – www.WBSLLC.com +1.717.597.8890

Liz Weber is an advisor to boards of directors, business owners, and C-Suite leaders. She’s a leadership, strategic and succession planning consultant, speaker, and author. She helps her clients focus on the right things at the right times to get the right impact. Learn more about Liz on LinkedIn!