Where is your focus - paperwork or people work?

Busy?

My guess is that nine out of 10 of you would answer "very."

I'll even go so far as to predict that you what you are busy with is attending meetings, submitting reports, doing rosters, complying with regulations, reviewing contracts, renewing leases, updating policies, replying to emails etc. You get the drift. Busyness. Kind of finds a way of filling our days, weeks, months.

I get it. None of us can actually opt out of this mostly paperwork stuff completely, but many of us are risking taking our eye off the most important responsibility we have - to make people better. 

When we submit to being consumed by the paperwork, and neglect people work, we simply become managers, not leaders. If maintaining the status quo ie being happy with tomorrow being the same as today and yesterday is OK with you, then by all means, keep your focus on the paperwork.

If, and I suspect it is, you'd rather make sure the future is as bright as it can be, focusing on making people better is the key.

Leadership is about people work! 

Leaders make better lovers

Leaders love lots.

They love their industry* – that’s where their passion comes from.

They love their organisation – they deeply care that it succeeds and grows.

They love their people – they want to see them grow, develop and be happy.

They love their families – that’s why they strive for and achieve balance between their career and time for their loved ones

They love their communities – they give back and they make sure that their organisations are good corporate citizens.

And finally, they love themselves – they look after their physical and mental health, they challenge themselves to grow and develop and they want to be the best they can be.

Take the leadership love challenge – how many can you tick? Where do you need to love more? What are you going to do about it?

* PS: You may not be in love with your industry, for example you don’t have to be passionate about money to work in the finance industry, but you might at least care about the difference, for instance, that making money available to families makes. It will be harder for your leadership to surface if you really dislike the industry you work in.