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The number one reason leaders give for lower than desired performance is that the leader feels over-scheduled and doesn’t have the time necessary to address underperformance. One executive I worked with had thirty-five meetings per weekend a typical day had him going from meeting to meeting and from phone call to phone call, all while receiving text messages asking for answers to important questions. He had no white space in his calendar to think broadly and deeply about what transpired in the meetings and felt exasperated.
Why was he so overwhelmed and over-scheduled? Over the last twenty-five years, I’ve found nine reasons why leaders feel overwhelmed and why performance is lower than desired. They are:
1. Underperformance is tolerated. Every organization has employees that underperform and others that overperform. The former may be interested solely in having a paycheck and have little enthusiasm for increasing their performance. Rather than find a job where the expectations are lower, they’re allowed to stay in their roles even in the face of underperformance. When underperformance is tolerated, a clear message is sent to all employees that this is acceptable and there are no repercussions. This mindset stalls growth and is a catalyst for even greater underperformance.
2. Miscommunication. When leaders feel overwhelmed and are continually running from one meeting to another without any margin or white space, miscommunication is assured. By that, I mean you will miss the subtle nuances of interpersonal communication, and in the process of rushing from meeting to meeting miscommunicate expectations due to the anxiety of needing to be in two places at once. This leads to false starts and the all-too-familiar rework required as a result of miscommunication.
3. Acting on bad advice. In order to know whether advice is sound or flawed, leaders must be discriminating. When a leader feels overwhelmed, their ability to think critically decreases. They intellectually understand the recommendations being given and they want to believe the solution will work, but without the time and white space to think deeper and with greater breadth or depth, the advice given is screened through the prism of expediency rather than effectiveness.
4. Being tired, worn down, and burned out. In America, leaders pride themselves on pushing themselves to the limit. It is a badge of honor to say to family and friends you’re working seventy hours a week. And yet, in study after study, the research shows that as the number of hours you work each week goes further north, the quality of your work goes proportionally south. Greater effectiveness comes from leaders and employees who are energized, uplifted, and enthused about making a positive difference in the life of a customer. This is nearly impossible to do when a leader or employee is hanging on for dear life and trying to keep their nose above water.
5. Mission critical projects. Leaders are expected to lead and manage mission critical projects, where the project has the potential to have an important impact on one or more key metrics for the team or organization. These projects require increased energy, focus, and perseverance. And yet in most organizations today, when leaders have mission critical projects, they are also expected to maintain their current day-to-day work. When this expanded scope of responsibility is coupled with an already heavy work load, the level of anxiety and feeling of being overwhelmed skyrockets.
6. Lack of support from other functional areas. A healthcare executive client had a need to hire 100 nurses for one of their hospitals. This open head count had been in place for over six months and was being addressed by a highly ineffective Human Resources department. The executive recounted how exasperating it was to work with a department that is overwhelmed and understaffed. She clearly saw what needed to be done, but didn’t have the resources or authority to address the issue without working with Human Resources. Raising the issue only solicited a “We’re doing the very best we can” response. Poor support from other departments is highly frustrating to leaders who have a bias toward taking action and getting results.
7. Not having the skills to manage stress effectively. There are two types of stress we face at one time or another: eustress and distress. Eustress occurs when the gap between what we want and what we have is slightly pushed, but not in ways that lead us to feel overwhelmed. We see this stress as manageable and our goal achievable.
Distress is the opposite. The gap is unmanageable and the goal is seen as unreachable. This leads us to feel overwhelmed, out of control, and ineffective. Leaders need the ability to capitalize on eustress, as well as the ability to reduce or eliminate the causes and or effects of distress. And yet the number one strategy for dealing with stress in organizations today is to put your nose to the grindstone and gut it out. There are times when this strategy is needed and the preferred way forward, however, too often working harder is preferred by busy and overwhelmed leaders over working smarter.
8. Poor time management and priority-setting habits. Ask leaders if they feel more reactive or proactive and the overwhelming answer is reactive. The exigency of a leader’s day-to-day work is one where continual priority-setting is a necessity and a reality. There is a rub with this reality, though, and it’s this…when all of your priorities are a top priority, you end up with no priorities.
Being able to strategically and respectfully say no to bosses as well as customers is a key skill transformational leaders have mastered. When leaders look at their calendars and ask what percent of their time is spent in low value producing activities relative to their most strategic priorities, what figure would you expect to hear? Eighty percent? Seventy? Fifty percent? All too often the figure from my coaching and consulting clients is thirty percent. With greater priority-setting skills, as well as good time management, a leader can increase the strategic use of their calendar by 25 – 50%, which has a transformational impact on their performance.
9. Unaware of the importance of mindset on performance. In business schools across the country, the number of classes taught on mindset and mental training is tiny. Yes, psychology is taught in broad and often theoretical terms, much like the tried-and-true courses on financial management and marketing, and new courses on social media.
What happens in between the ears of leaders and employees is in many ways what determines financial performance, market share, and talent acquisition and retention. When a factor as important as mindset is missing from a leaders arsenal of tools, the results are less than appealing.
Your Two Critical Questions
When you look at this list, undoubtedly you will be able to add other factors that lead you to feel overwhelmed. Just about all of these can be influenced by a leader.
1. Which one, if you were to address it, would improve your performance and that of your department, team or business?
2. What one action can you take today to address being over scheduled or improve underperformance?
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