SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: What is the biggest distraction from you spending time developing your people?
- E-mail — the constant barrage of e-mail: 26.94%
- Meetings — the endless slate of meetings: 25.99%
- Fire drills — the last minute blow-ups drag me away: 17.59%
- Desk work — analysis, performance reviews, administrivia, etc.: 15.53%
- Something else: 3.17%
- Nothing — I always carve out enough time for people development: 10.78%
Too many distractions. It’s awfully difficult to lead when your day is consumed by e-mail and meetings. And when you do get “caught up,” you’re inevitably sucked into a fire drill or dragged down by administrivia. The onus is on you to find ways to reduce how much your inbox and calendar run your life so you can dedicate more time to leading and developing your people. There are ways you can get to (and stay at) “inbox zero” but it takes discipline and effort. That discipline, however, is well worth it if it gives you the time you need to develop your team.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”