The Leadership Habit That Drives Results
Are you ready to grow your leadership influence? Start by improving your ability to focus and finish tasks, and help others do the same. Embrace change, set clear priorities, and act with intention.
Being able to focus and finish is essential for strong leadership and influence. Leaders who never complete tasks or keep repeating the same steps are less effective. Here are three strategies to help you improve in this area.
Embrace Change: The first step is being open to change. Leaders who admit they don’t have all the answers are already on the right path to growth.
Prioritize: There’s never enough time to do everything. Often, the first things we skip are soft skills like personal growth and helping others grow, but these have the biggest impact on our leadership. Next, focus on success by picking your top three priorities from your list of ten. Ask yourself where you can make real progress today or this week. Look for the root cause of issues and see if you can address it to avoid recurring problems.
Intentionality: Don’t give up! Sometimes you’ll get off track, and that’s normal. Just do your best to refocus and avoid letting less important issues take over. For example, if you set your top three priorities on Monday but get sidetracked by other problems, take time on Tuesday to regroup. Review what happened and adjust your approach to prevent similar interruptions. You might need to change your work processes or how you manage your schedule. Staying intentional and focused isn’t always easy or popular, but you can succeed.
Hearts of Iron (HOI) is a well-known strategy game. Like many games, you can use published "cheats" to change how you play. Sometimes, you even need to use codes outside the main game interface to adjust things. In leadership, using these "cheats" is like stepping outside your usual routine to make changes. You might need to adjust your process, then return to your regular work and see how effective the changes are.
As leaders, the true value of focusing and finishing is that we become more effective at making progress and achieving success. But it’s not just about our own growth. The real impact comes when we help others learn these principles too. That’s what leadership and influence are all about.
_____________________________________________
H Mark Taylor enjoys living on a farm with his lifelong family. H Mark Taylor is an Independent Certified Coach, Trainer, and Speaker with the Maxwell Leadership Certified Team. He is a leadership & life coach with more than 20 years of experience and training, earned his Master's in Information Management from Washington University - St. Louis, and has multiple certifications in Leadership, Project Management, and Cyber Security. H Mark gives all credit to his wife, Young, and to God.
© copyright 2022 H Mark Taylor
