Barry was sitting in a meeting with his leadership team when his PA knocked on the door to let him know his appointment was waiting for him. At the same time his phone rang and his wife was asking if he’d attended to something he’s promised whilst his phone buzzed with text message from his team asking where the instructions were he’d promised them so they could move forward with an important deal.
Right at this moment, Barry felt incredible stressed and had a sense that things were out of control. And he was right. They were.
This is a real story that Barry (name changed of course!) shared with me last week. He’s stressed, out of control but really, really busy. He feels like he’s making no progress and chasing his tail. He’s hasn’t got a plan for his time or his actions and therefore has no clarity on what he should be doing when. It’s all a complete mess.
Barry’s situation is not unique to him. And you may have experienced times when you’ve been in his situation. His circumstance is the result of being caught in the busy trap that makes you become totally reactive and distracted. You lack clarity, focus and drive; you run blind and hope for the best; you also have the horrible feeling of being out of control.
Being reactive in business is exhausting, frustrating and unsustainable.
You’re constantly ‘fire fighting’, putting out infernos that are likely started thanks to your lack of an adequate safety plan.
As motivational speaker Zig Ziglar once said: ‘You can’t hit a target you can’t see.’ So while the scatter-gun approach may work in the short term as a quick fix, it’s definitely not a strategy for success.
When you’re busy being busy and feeling out of control, you default to the past, and fall into old traps and behaviours. This is a dangerous place to be. This is where you start to become irrelevant, and fall behind your competitors.
If you’re a leader and you’re stuck on reactive and busy then you risk modelling the following behaviours:
- use excuses and blame others for mistakes
- are a victim of circumstance
- cultivate the wrong culture
- fail to understand your priorities
- role model the wrong behaviours to your team
- compromise what is important to you
- avoid difficult but necessary conversations
- fail to coach and motivate your team
- miss valuable connections with your stakeholders
- lack clarity on your direction
- limit your thinking
- communicate and listen poorly to others
- miss out on opportunities.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, when you are proactive your experience is very different. Rather than defaulting to the past, you are forward focused and have vision. You are motivated, clear on your priorities and have that wonderful feeling of being in control. Being a proactive leader means modelling the following behaviours:
- think strategically
- know your priorities and be efficient
- collaborate and engage with your team
- coach and mentor your team
- ensure your culture is inclusive and diverse
- be aware of when you need to zig or zag (flexibility)
- listen and understand your team and clients
- confront situations and deal with them in a timely manner
- be decisive
- be courageous
- role model the behaviours you expect from your team
- be optimistic in times of adversity.
Some leaders like to swing ‘both ways’, actually seeming to enjoy the adrenalin ride that comes with being reactive. However, this is not a sustainable place to be. I absolutely agree that it is rare to be proactive 100% of the time as things just happen in business and we can’t predict every situation. However, it is unsustainable to be reactive all of the time.
If you are going to choose to operate at a high level, hold yourself to a high standard and be a positive role model to your team, you need to be operating far more often as a proactive leader. If you are operating like Barry is, even if it’s a small percentage of the time, you need to stop and ask yourself – ‘what is this costing me and how can I turn it around?’