You Don’t Have to be Exhausted to Lead Well

As the CEO of a growing company, I quickly discovered that a leadership role comes with its share of challenges. Sometimes a leader feels as if he or she is herding cats. To excel in leadership, you must show up daily and attend to the important aspects of leading your organization.

One of the principle tasks of a leader is to unify the efforts of the team to achieve common goals. It takes a clear vision, good communication and a lot of patient reinforcement to “get everyone playing the same piece of music!”

What’s a leader to do?

Here’s a look into some of my thinking early in my career: “I only have so many hours in the day. How can I maintain a unified outside-looking message that reinforces our intentional corporate brand? How can I sustain our processes and procedures to produce consistent results from our team?”

I think you’ll agree with me that the leader’s plate is full. In this blog post, I’ll share a tip that anyone can use to lead well while gaining back valuable time in your schedule.

Recruit the help of a simple policy

Have you ever thought of your policy manual as a resource to help you lead better? I instituted a company policy that was a great help in the area of outside -facing branding and inward-facing best practices. We called this our one-over-one policy.

Here’s a summary of the policy:

Any decision regarding the alteration of corporate messaging, company procedures, or the procurement of equipment or materials which would result in changes to the way we do business or the appearance of our business, must be approved by the next higher level of supervisor, before being implemented by a supervisor or his direct reports.

Multiple advantages

Using this policy accomplishes multiple objectives:

1. It raises the awareness of supervisors and employees regarding the importance of the corporate branding and procedures that we have in place.

2. It recruits the help of middle and upper-tier supervisors to help maintain consistency in these important areas.

3. It allows for creative thought and change, while providing guidelines that prevent ineffective or unproductive ideas to grow.

4. It leverages the time of the leader by providing a structured, yet collaborative way to stay the coarse while providing a roadmap for new ideas and suggestions.

Every leader can use this policy to improve his or her leadership while also saving valuable time. Incorporating a simple policy like the one above is a no-brainer. It encourages mutual accountability, vertical integration and can help you orchestrate your company’s branding and team’s efforts.

How can you incorporate this policy into your organization?

P.S. – This same idea can help you overcome some challenges in human resources. Click here to see how this applies in to employee perks and promotions.