How to free yourself up for greater things
"I know I can do more, but I don't want to put more work on my team" or "I enjoy my involvement with wider commercial issues the most; how can I make more time for that and still do my job well?" are some of the questions that come up in conversations with coaching clients.
People who raise topics like this are often bursting at the seams of their assigned role, keen to get involved in wider strategic issues where they can add value. But they don't want to do that at the expense of their team. They still want their team to have all the resources, guidance and support they need, even when their own attention is becoming more divided. Of course they know they can never have more time. The question is really about what they choose to spend it on. What are the top one or two most important issues for them to work on? What can they do to free themselves up to spend most of their time on those most critical things?
Answering the first question tends to be relatively easy for most people. They know what has the greatest potential value in the work they do. But there are lots of reasons why they can't dedicate as much time to it as they'd like: competing demands on their time from people with different priorities and helping the team solve issues tend to come top of that list. It can be tough to disentangle themselves and rearrange their commitments. They don't want to let anyone down, and that creates tension when they want to step up and take on more. It is not humanly possible to keep adding work and responsibilities. Something has to give. Unless they make conscious choices and have conversations with their stakeholders about what their mutual goals are and how they can best work together, they risk disappointing their team, their stakeholders, or themselves.
Freeing yourself up can involve a higher degree of delegation. Sharpening your focus isn't always enough. If there is more work that absolutely must be done than you are able to handle, you have just found a development opportunity for some of your team members. Who can take on this piece, and that? If the thought of handing "your" work to someone else makes you uncomfortable, it may help to think about it in terms of how you can guide your team's development. Which is, as it happens, your job. You're not really handing anything over. You are doing your job as a leader, and they are getting an opportunity to grow. Which will free you up even more over time as they learn.
