SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 200,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our newsletter.
Where do you spend the majority of your time and energy on people leadership?
- I spend it mostly with my high performers: 36.67%
- I spend it mostly with my average performers: 35.83%
- I spend it mostly with my low performers: 27.50%
The best use of your time. A large portion of you report spending most of your time and energy on your high performers. The question is, what is your return on that time investment? Do they really need you spending that much time with them or are you spending it there because it’s fun and easy? Why aren’t you spending more time with your low performers helping them improve? There may be bigger gains there in terms of the time investment to performance improvement ratio.
Ask yourself if your high performers really need that much of your time. They might feel like you’re wasting their time or that you’re micromanaging them. Take a step back. Give them space to grow. Reinvest that time in average performers to boost them to the next level or your low performers getting them up to the standard. Your time is a finite resource — get the highest return out of it that you can!
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, which includes TITAN — the firm’s e-learning platform. Previously, he worked at McKinsey & Co., Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is a West oint graduate and author of three leadership books: “One Piece of Paper,” “Lead Inside the Box” and “The Elegant Pitch.”