Leadership Principle #13: Landmines – The Career Killers. Part 1 of 5 – Clarity and Prioritization

Leadership Principle #13: Landmines – the Career Killers. 

Part 1 of 5 – Clarity and Prioritization

The first landmine I see affecting leaders is a lack of clarity and prioritization. 

When I sit down with a CEO during a coaching session and ask them their top 3 priorities for the business, they usually start reciting a whole laundry list of items that are “top” priorities.  This isn’t showing prioritization or clarity. 

First off, ask yourself what are the 3 things that matter most to the business, and then get laser focused on those.  This first step is crucial because if you don’t understand your businesses priorities, how do you expect others to stay aligned? 

After you get really clear on your top 3 priorities, you then need to communicate these to your team, and keep them focused on these in every meeting.  If you don’t keep these main priorities top of mind for you and the team, the risk is you will find your team busy accomplishing #7, #8 and #9 on the list while not achieving anything of great importance to the business.  Guess what?  Landmine goes off…

Warning: Providing clarity and prioritization for your team might sound easy, but it can be surprisingly hard to keep teams focused.  People like to be busy, and I get it -- checking lots of items off the list feels good.  But the risk of expending too much energy in the wrong areas will ultimately be a huge liability for the organization if the primary business goals are neglected.  Clarity and effective prioritization are key to unlocking success for the business, and yourself as CEO.

If you want to learn more about how CEO coaching can help you avoid career-killing landmines, give me a call.

Next Up: Landmine #2 - Isolation