The Leader’s SECOND Worst Enemy

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The Leader’s SECOND Worst Enemy

Posted On : Jul-19-2010 | seen (564) times | Article Word Count : 633 |

Jeff woke up with the alarm on his Blackberry. With eyes half opened, he saw the 100 emails he received over night. He was exhausted after reading and replying to emails for more than 4 hours the night before. The more emails he replied to, the more emails flooded his Inbox. He took his Blackberry to the bathroom to read the “new comers”, continued over breakfast and even while driving to his office. The road was jammed. His inbox was jammed. His life felt gloomy… another day of email congestion.

You might think Jeff’s job title is “email responder”. It isn’t. Jeff is a Sales Vice President of a Multi-National Corporation. He manages 35 sales professionals across the world. He travels 60% of his time; but wherever he is or whatever he does, emails take most of his time.

While driving to the office, Jeff thought how things were different when he joined the company 15 years earlier. Faxes were still the common communication with customers. Emails were sent during office hours. It all changed 12 years ago after the company gave employees laptops. In a short time the volume of emails quadrupled. The email volume again grew 6 years ago when Blackberries arrived. Jeff’s stress level has grown exponentially as he tries to cope with a communication overflow that never stops. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. 365 days a year.

Jeff thought, “Communication volume is 50 times higher than 10 years ago, yet sales are at the same level. How did this happen? The number of emails shouldn’t have gone from 50 to 500 per day at the same level of revenues!”

Jeff is just one out of many executives that lose leadership potential because of communication overflow. The communication revolution offers a wealth of opportunities but also risks that can defeat even the most accomplished. Executives go from proactive to reactive management because of the email jam. They are not free to spend time planning the next decade, next year, next week…or even the next day.

Have you become an “email cruncher” like Jeff?

Senior executive job descriptions do not include responding to emails. A manager who wants to grow into a leader must take control of his or her emails, not let emails take control of them. From my experience, improving email efficiency (more emails in less time) was disappointing in terms of yielding more time for leadership planning. Instead of gaining EXTRA time, the volume of emails doubled. The more rapidly I replied, the more people replied using “Reply All”. The email jam became much worse.

Responding to emails is reactive management. If we as leaders do not change reactive email crunching to proactive leadership actions, we will not make a difference in work lives of ourselves or our peers. We must not let emails take control over our time or our minds.

How to change the email crunching mindset? Try avoiding emails in the morning. Use this time to be creative: to write, think, find solutions, innovate and implement. Cancel the email alert on your desktop. It is an interruption. Most of the emails are CC emails that do not require immediate attention.

Another good idea is to not spend more than 25% of time on emails. A model for the other 75% looks like this: 25% for creative thinking, initiation, planning and solutions, 25% for personnel, coaching, meetings and management and 25% for task management and follow ups.

As the old say goes “You cannot manage your time but you can manage yourself”.

How do you manage yourself? How do you bring your leadership into effect? Share it with the readers by commenting in the box below.

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<h1>The Leader’s SECOND Worst Enemy</h1> Author: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/profile_Dave Osh.aspx'>Dave Osh</a> Jeff woke up with the alarm on his Blackberry. With eyes half opened, he saw the 100 emails he received over night. He was exhausted after reading and replying to emails for more than 4 hours the night before. The more emails he replied to, the more emails flooded his Inbox. He took his Blackberry to the bathroom to read the “new comers”, continued over breakfast and even while driving to his office. The road was jammed. His inbox was jammed. His life felt gloomy… another day of email congestion.

You might think Jeff’s job title is “email responder”. It isn’t.  Jeff is a Sales Vice President of a Multi-National Corporation. He manages 35 sales professionals across the world. He travels 60% of his time; but wherever he is or whatever he does, emails take most of his time.

While driving to the office, Jeff thought how things were different when he joined the company 15 years earlier. Faxes were still the common communication with customers. Emails were sent during office hours. It all changed 12 years ago after the company gave employees laptops.  In a short time the volume of emails quadrupled. The email volume again grew 6 years ago when Blackberries arrived. Jeff’s stress level has grown exponentially as he tries to cope with a communication overflow that never stops. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. 365 days a year.

Jeff thought, “Communication volume is 50 times higher than 10 years ago, yet sales are at the same level. How did this happen? The number of emails shouldn’t have gone from 50 to 500 per day at the same level of revenues!”

Jeff is just one out of many executives that lose leadership potential because of communication overflow.  The communication revolution offers a wealth of opportunities but also risks that can defeat even the most accomplished. Executives go from proactive to reactive management because of the email jam. They are not free to spend time planning the next decade, next year, next week…or even the next day.

Have you become an “email cruncher” like Jeff?

Senior executive job descriptions do not include responding to emails.  A manager who wants to grow into a leader must take control of his or her emails, not let emails take control of them. From my experience, improving email efficiency (more emails in less time) was disappointing in terms of yielding more time for leadership planning. Instead of gaining EXTRA time, the volume of emails doubled. The more rapidly I replied, the more people replied using “Reply All”. The email jam became much worse.

Responding to emails is reactive management. If we as leaders do not change reactive email crunching to proactive leadership actions, we will not make a difference in work lives of ourselves or our peers. We must not let emails take control over our time or our minds.

How to change the email crunching mindset? Try avoiding emails in the morning. Use this time to be creative: to write, think, find solutions, innovate and implement. Cancel the email alert on your desktop. It is an interruption. Most of the emails are CC emails that do not require immediate attention.

Another good idea is to not spend more than 25% of time on emails. A model for the other 75% looks like this:  25% for creative thinking, initiation, planning and solutions, 25% for personnel, coaching, meetings and management and 25% for task management and follow ups.

As the old say goes “You cannot manage your time but you can manage yourself”.

How do you manage yourself? How do you bring your leadership into effect? Share it with the readers by commenting in the box below.About the Author: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://daveosh.com/">Original article</a> by Dave Osh who is a forward thinking leader who has steered his way to the corporate pinnacle. His <a rel="nofollow" href="http://daveosh.com/2009/12/06/leader-second-worst-enemy/">Thought Leadership blog</a> is a wealth of stories, ideas, experiences, values, traits and skills which every manager who seeks a breakthrough towards international enterprise leadership needs. Article Source: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/Article_The-Leader’s-SECOND-Worst-Enemy_26093.aspx'> http://www.articleseen.com/Article_The Leader’s SECOND Worst Enemy_26093.aspx</a>

Article Source : http://www.articleseen.com/Article_The Leader’s SECOND Worst Enemy_26093.aspx

Author Resource :
Original article by Dave Osh who is a forward thinking leader who has steered his way to the corporate pinnacle. His Thought Leadership blog is a wealth of stories, ideas, experiences, values, traits and skills which every manager who seeks a breakthrough towards international enterprise leadership needs.

Keywords : Dave Osh, leadership, CEO, corporate, management, development, training, skills, business, qualities, organization, effective,

Category : Self Improvement : Self Improvement

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