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Leadership Behavior:
Successful Leaders Must Create Quiet Times
To be successful as a leader, you must master the leadership behavior dealing with many interruptions that bombard you every day. Emails, phone calls, voice mails, small tasks, advice and impromptu meetings are many things that can consume untold amounts of time if you let them. If you have the proper leadership behavior then you can manage these pesky disturbances. Finding a solution through your leadership behavior will help achieve what you set out to do each day.
One leadership behavior that will help you is to establish strategic quiet times in your day. Quiet time is defined as uninterrupted time periods where you will not take phone calls, emails, voice mails or impromptu meetings so as to give undivided attention to the goals that you have set for your leadership behavior for the day.
Here’s what you do.
1. Set Your Leadership Behavior Quiet Hour.
At the beginning of the day before you get to work or as soon as you arrive take an hour when no one can bother you and dedicate it to the goals that you set for the year.
If your goal is to increase income by $100,000.00 spend your time solely on that goal and do not allow any distractions to detour you. During this time you will not take phone calls, emails or voice mails and for the moment you must ignore your ‘to do’ list.
2. Prioritize Your Messages.
Next set aside a period where you check your messages and decide which ones you need to respond to that day. Each message must have a definite priority so that you know which ones are Urgent, which ones are Important and which ones can be Delayed. Dividing your messages between these priorities gives your leadership behavior a chance to work on the necessary responses on your time – not on other’s time.
3. Establish a Leadership Behavior Flex Time.
Establish another flex time between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm to take care of those projects that need to get completed that day. This will increase your efficiency many times over and prevent you from wasting energy, shifting from one task to another. Other people will eventually get to know your routine and make contact with you during these times, when you are able to get interrupted.
Make sure your leadership behavior sticks to that flex time period whenever possible. Having a regular time for your tasks will help you do it and get it done.
4. Be Smart About Your Phone Time.
Being smart about phone calls can greatly enhance your efficiency. You may want to wait to return phone calls until you know that the person on the receiving end is not there. This way you can leave a message with the pertinent information without needing to take time for all the social niceties that go along with phoning.
It would be unwise to treat all calls this way as some calls require direct contact. But in those instances where a short message with factual information will suffice it will save time to give the information only.
5. Always Be Available for Crucial Tasks.
In the event of crucial phone calls give the person several ways to reach you. One way to do this is to have your administrative assistant screen your calls so you can be contacted in the event of an emergency. If a phone conversation is necessary have your assistant book a time for the call.
Finding a method to be available for those prioritized messages and tasks means you’ll never be at fault, even when you are interrupted. Email forwarding to your phone, event reminders and even a flowchart of your time can help you schedule time for others to find you at the most crucial moments of the day.
If you establish quiet times through your leadership behavior, you will be better equipped to handle your day with ease and grace, and be much more productive. Employing this principle will go a long way in helping you achieve your goals and be a successful leader.
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Defining Leadership
