In this blog, we continue to explore the topic of agile leadership, which we covered in a recent breakfast we facilitated with business owners and CEOs.
In particular, we focused on the lessons from a study conducted by Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria from the Harvard Business School. The study provides an insight into the habits and day-to-day activities of successful CEOs of a number of large global organisations; including details how much time they spent on their key daily activities.
The top 10 strategies that made these CEOs effective give all leaders a good benchmark of how we should spend our time. Once incorporated into your life they will help you to become a better and more agile leader, regardless of the size of your organisation.
- Leave 25% of free space in your diary for spontaneous meetings;
- Protect blocks of 2 hours or more of alone time to think, plan and execute projects;
- Focus on shorter and more effective meetings with clear agendas (e.g.instead of running an hour-long meeting, catch up for an efficient 30 or 45 minutes session);
- Be the champion of your company’s culture; lead by example;
- Create aligned and clear strategy across the business to provide clarity of direction for all;
- Manage emails during set times and set expectations in terms of which emails you will respond to;
- Develop leadership capability across the business and spend time with your direct reports knowing the impact this will have on your personal effectiveness;
- Limit routine responsibilities and focus on your quarterly business agenda and conduct regular business performance reviews;
- If your business operates in a B2B environment, make time to meet with your key customers;
- Lastly, make time for your personal wellbeing, including physical fitness and hobbies.
We hope you have found these strategies helpful.
For more information on the HBR study, follow this link.
