A Workload To Make Your Eyes Water

Talk to enough senior leaders and a similar picture crops up. Diaries double and triple booked, inboxes overflowing, decisions galore, days stretching at both ends, countless urgent priorities. And at the end of the week, there’s a knowing that some of the weekend also needs to be sacrificed to get the “important stuff” done.

Because despite the hours worked, conversations had, and meetings attended, there still needs to be time to do some “actual work” as it’s often described to me.

I know this isn’t about competence in any way, shape or form. I’ve had the privilege of working with exceptional leaders for years – from my days in corporate myself right through a decade of coaching others. Highly accomplished and capable people genuinely trying to work out how to tackle it all.

I’ve been there myself, ultimately feeling that the only answer is to push on through until it’s done. Yet in reality, knowing it will never all be done and more will flood in.

 

The Leader Within “The System”

There’s a gazillion productivity, leadership, and effectiveness books, theories and hacks out there, yet still this same perennial conundrum facing us. I therefore think we can safely conclude that this isn’t solely about the individual.

It’s about something much bigger – the “system”. That organisational life-force that somehow consumes every available minute without actually allowing the critical “move the needle” things to get done. It steals all the time and energy, and still manages to leave a day’s worth of work to be done beyond 5pm.

This may appear as though I’m being critical of leaders – it’s absolutely not the case. Because I see this as a big and complex issue; if it was easy, it would have been solved already.

One thing’s for sure, the organisations that manage to get the system working for them, rather than dictating to them, are undoubtedly going to have a mighty advantage.

 

Brain-Busting Impacts

The environment businesses are operating in is undoubtedly tough. External forces are creating extreme pressure, with no real sign of easing off, and the need to respond is essential. Organisational goals remain ambitious, as they absolutely should.

The result with organisations tends to be the generation of multiple proactive and reactionary changes, each equally important, all demanding time and attention simultaneously, with an expectation of continuous cognitive brilliance, leading to a complete brain-busting, nervous system straining, energy depleting, time stealing, excessive over-load for leaders and their teams.

And let’s not forget that small matter of BAU delivery that must remain near perfect and always improving.

It might sound dramatic, but if you’re honest, I suspect you’re nodding and thinking that’s a fair assessment.

 

Breaking The Cycle

In these types of circumstances, even leaders can stop feeling like the proactive, strategic, innovative presence they were appointed to be, and start feeling like a reactive resource the organisational system deploys. A sense of being powerless to effect the change that will make the real difference to what they and their teams can accomplish.

 

Clearly, this isn’t an easy cycle to break, and I don’t pretend to hold a miraculous answer. But these things are clear to me:

• It is a leader’s ongoing responsibility to look within, around and to their teams, to help smooth the way as much as is within their influence – that goes without saying. I believe everyone unanimously feels this.
• It’s crucial to recognise when the challenge being faced is bigger than one leader alone – to find ways to name it and discuss it, so that together leadership can disrupt the system for the benefit of all. I think this is often carried individually when it can only be solved collectively.
• The organisational system has to work for the benefit of all – if the reported “real work” is only getting done outside of a working day full of meetings, committees and online traffic, that’s a broken system requiring urgent repair. That must become the focus – even if it feels like the proverbial oil tanker.
• A continuously relentless, demanding, highly pressured work setting will have consequences – not many of them good. From poor decisions and less innovation through to the risk of ill-health and attrition – with much more in between. The illusion that leaders can continue like this ad infinitum is flawed.
• Prioritisation has to be more ruthless than ever before, communication more effective and frequent, team togetherness super tight, psychological safety maxed, and space to think expanded. And in the seriousness, there has to be time for fun, joy, and all the good stuff. Most of the things the system doesn’t appear to allow time for. But what if it did – what would it solve, what would it create?
• Leaders (in fact, all) must have sufficient off-time to decompress, re-charge, enjoy something other than work, breathe air into their lives. Only by being truly well can they bring their best to the workplace. It looks different for everyone, but sacrificing it carries risk.
• Working even more hours undoubtedly isn’t the answer.

 

I’m acutely aware that all of this still falls on the shoulders of leadership; the same people already running flat out. But maybe the only way forward is to pause.

 

How Coaching Can Help

I don’t pretend to have the answers – in fact, that’s not really what I’m here for. But having a coaching partner and dedicated regular coaching time does mean you have at least some space to think, and do so with someone objective and independent, who wants you at your best, doing your best, and enjoying it along the way. Someone who gets it, and in the nicest way possible, will challenge and ask you to consider if there’s a different way. Someone not down in the detail with you, but who can support you in seeing the bigger picture and making the shift that helps you. Someone who’s in your corner.

Find out more about working together here, experiences of other clients here, and if you’re ready to talk, book an enquiry call here. Alternatively, stay connected on LinkedIn if the time isn’t right just yet.