What if You're Checking Off the Wrong Things?

I can spend an entire day coaching leaders, helping them work through problems and having really good conversations.

Then I get to the end of the day and think, "I didn't get anything done today."

Give me a proposal to finish, emails to respond to, or a presentation to build, and it's different. I can check those things off a list. There's something satisfying about being able to point to what you accomplished.

Leadership doesn't always work that way.

I was reminded of this recently while talking with a CEO. She was considering a large initiative that was going to take a significant amount of her time. As we talked about what was most important to her, she started to realize that the initiative wasn't really what she needed, and it might not be particularly helpful to the people she was creating it for.

She would have been busy. She would have produced something. She would have had something big to check off her list.

But would it have moved her most important priorities forward?

That's one of the harder shifts in leadership. The higher you go, the less your success can be measured simply by what you finish.

Maybe leaders still need a checklist. It just needs to be a different kind by starting with your highest priorities, and then asking:

"What behaviors, activities, and actions will actually help me move these forward?

That might mean coaching someone instead of solving the problem yourself. Or having a difficult conversation you've been avoiding. Or simply spending time thinking about something important before jumping into action.

So at the end of this week, don't just ask, "What did I get done?" But ask "Did I spend my time on what mattered most?"