How do you increase you capability as a leader? The higher you want to climb, the greater the skill as a leader is required. Leadership is impacted by skill. When the leadership skill is low, the effort to be effective is much higher. It is difficult to achieve success greater than the skill of the leader or the leadership team. To reach the highest level of effectiveness, the leader must increase skill faster/greater than the growth of the organization. Build a team. Empower key contributors to increase your capability.

When leaders are trapped in the pond of their own knowledge, their business tends to find the ceiling of their skill and pull back from that point. If your team grows your capability, how might your company outgrow you? Consider, can we teach what we don’t know? Can you identify/recognize what you don’t know, don’t see? We must continue to grow our own skill. Just building the team is only part of the equation. You must grow to lead it also.Focus on the High Value priorities. Personal action items are part of the plan or they are high value and high impact tasks. Other tasks that creep onto their plate are appropriately delegated. One delegation theory ranks tasks to be completed in 4 quadrants by Value/Impact and frequency.

The Pareto Principle is named for Vilfredo Pareto who first recognized in 1940 that 80% of Italy’s wealth we held by 20% of the population. Years later a pioneer in Quality Control research suggested the rule can be applied much more widely. It is not intended as an exact 80/20 ratio or the ratio to add to 100% at all times. It is a guide that suggests a substantially larger portion of output, results, benefits are from the activity of a few. More generally, the Pareto Principle is the observation that most things in life are not distributed evenly. Consider the following suggestion for your business.

Keep your immediate task list short and focused. Executives seldom get the benefit of fully focused days. More often, they get short periods to “get things done”. Keeping their own action list short and actionable is a key success factor on a daily busy routine. There is a theory that 20% of action produces 80% of results (Paredo affect). Can you identify the 20%?

Plan, Plan, PLan (keep it simple and short) – seasoned executives work from a plan. As the business grows, they work from tiered plans. They set a personal foundation with a Vision for their personal life. They set a foundation for the business with a Strategic Plan. As they plan their month, week and daily calendars, it is prioritized measured based on Longer Term goals and current immediate projects.

• Life Vision – define where you plan to be at age 80 and work your way back
• Strategic Plan – The business you operate needs a long term vision and action plan to achieve the vision. Do you plan to sell in 5 years? At what valuation? How will you achieve it?
• Personal Long Term Plan – define results to achieve this year, quarter, month and define the action plan to achieve it. Items on this plan should be in support of the Strategic Plan.
• Weekly/Daily Plan – What makes it on your current action list? What results requires immediate action? Develop a plan for the week, by day. Items should be in support of the Long Term Plan.

The calendar of a seasoned executive is proactively filled based on intention, prioritized based on their plan. There is no question they will have meetings each day, each week. How do those meetings get planned? Does the executive doesn’t arrive at the office and react, wait to see who may show up. The calendar is managed for the success of the executive based on priority. It is seldom filled simply by the requests of others…. The executive proactively makes contact to meet the goals, objectives, results at hand. The executive dedicates time for thinking and planning. People are scheduled like investments of time direction, advise, input or challenge.

One person cannot accomplish all the demands of a business. The CEO should focus on High Value, High Impact tasks and be conscious of the times when low value tasks are on your to-do list. Effective delegation means assigning tasks to individuals that are appropriately skilled and trained to be successful. Trust but verify. $90 an hour tasks are not assigned to entry level college grads. $30 an hour tasks are not assigned to a seasoned analyst or executive. Make it appropriate. Delegate timely. Follow-up. Acknowledge success. Learn and train in shortcomings. Effective accountable organizations coordinate around a principal. One successful principal Plan, Do, Check, Act.

A less successful principal is the find Fault and Blame Game. In baseball, if a player is blamed for striking out, dropping the throw to first, the fly ball. When the player becomes THE blame for failure, for loss, how well, will they perform in the next game? Their internal voice will transition from let’s play to don’t make a mistake. Don’t miss, don’t drop, don’t strike out. Guess what they are likely to do? Miss, Drop, strike out…. The “don’t message” will become their consistent reality. Positive thoughts lead to positive actions. We will work on positive energy as a key part of the End Zone Team.