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How big a part of your role as a leader is process improvement?

2 min read

Leadership

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 160,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.

Last week, we asked: How big a part of your role as a leader is process improvement?

  • It’s large. A big part of my role is process improvement: 47.54%
  • It’s moderate. I do some process improvement but not a lot: 28.35%
  • It’s huge. Process improvement is the majority of my role: 15.45%
  • It’s small. I spend very little time on process improvement: 8.66%

Process consumes our time: The vast majority of you are focused on process improvement as a large part of your role. While that’s great and our processes need improved, much of that work is focused on your management skills. As leaders, don’t forget the substantial amount of your time and effort that needs to be dedicated to helping your people grow and develop. If you have a choice between spending your time on improving a process or spending it on building the skills of your team members, I encourage you to choose the latter. As I discuss in this article, doing so strengthens your team, your organization, and enables you to get more done because you use your team’s talents to the fullest.

Mike Figliuolo is managing director of ThoughtLeaders and author of “One Piece of Paper.”