Leadership Isn't For Cowards: How to Drive Performance by Challenging People and Confronting Problems

Chapter 9

Where Is Your Focus?

We’ve touched on focus in earlier chapters, but how do you actually do it? Focus is one of the biggest challenges for a leader. While some reading this may believe that they are perfectly focused, most will admit that they can’t possibly deal with all of the demands facing them. Whether you are a CEO or a frontline supervisor, your energy is a precious resource, and an inability to focus on the right thing at the right time with the right amount of intensity will decrease the effectiveness of your leadership.

There is a ratio between how much energy you invest in any given demand of your day and the kind of return you get on that investment. Sharpening your focus will increase the likelihood that your organization will perform at the highest level.

Unfortunately, many people (and you know who you are) tend to overestimate their capacity. The American work ethic had always suggested that the harder you worked, the more successful you were. Then somebody came along and told us that we should work smarter, managing our time carefully. Really? Work smarter? That implies we have been working dumber all this time, and I don’t agree with that. In fact, I don’t think it’s about working harder or smarter at all. I don’t even think it’s about time management. I think it’s about getting the highest rate of return on the energy you invest on a daily basis.

It’s time to come to terms with the fact that you simply can’t do it all. It’s the truth. (I would also ...