Teamership: The capacity to lead
Leaders end up being the result of how they spend their:
Energy
Attention
Time
As a leader, you really are what you E.A.T.
This is something I have been on about for a while. I copied that from a post I wrote in 2018!
A trend I am noticing at the moment is that leaders are increasingly disappointed with what they are spending their Energy, Attention and Time on.
Leaders are feeling like they are being asked to do more with less.
More revenue, more results, more engagement, more savings.
Less people, less resources, less time, less support, less capacity.
The capacity I am talking about for leaders in this context is twofold:
Calendar space - the time to commit our energy and attention to what is most important
Cognitive space - the ability to focus our energy and attention on what is most important.
Being able to manage these two components of capacity are central to leaders having high performing teams.
Of the two, my instinct is that leaders make a lot of effort to try to manage their time (calendar space), but not as much effort on their ability to focus (cognitive space).
Without having more calendar space, many of the best leaders are able to make a bigger impact by considering their presence. Leadership presence has a whole thing. I think there is a simpler way to consider it by focusing on the presence part in the sense of being present.
Leaders become much more effective and engaging when they are present with the people that they lead. It doesn’t have to take any more time.
The best example I know comes from research in hospitals where it found that doctors who sat down with their patients lead to much better outcomes. When doctors sat down, patients reported more often that the doctors:
spent enough time with them
checked to make sure they fully understood information
let them talk without interruption
were not in a rush
These are the same things that leaders want when working with their team members.
The kicker on this is that the doctors didn’t have to invest any more calendar space! All of this happened despite doctors spending the same or less time with patients.
Here are some questions to consider this week:
What is the equivalent of sitting next to a patient in your work context?
The research found that having a chair available increased the sitting (and therefore improved the outcomes) significantly. How can you design a solution that allows you to be more present?
Are there other ways for you to maximise your cognitive space without needing more calendar space?