100 Ways to Motivate Others

109. Do What’s Required

Is what you are doing in the next hour highly productive for you? Is it your next necessary required action?

Or are you just keeping busy?

—Dusan Djukich

Of all the thousands of books on leadership and management our absolute favorite is Dusan Djukich’s Straight-Line Leadership. In it Djukich contrasts leaders who go in circles all day with leaders who go in a straight line, from A to B, getting the results they want. His central premise is that we all know what to do to get the result we want. He asks leaders to identify the objective, and then list the necessary required actions that must be taken.

Notice the power in the words necessary, required, and must. There is no wiggle room. No way to get vague or bail out by ...