Managing Leadership^®

The key for anyone, from a line employee to a senior manager, to stand out and increase productivity is pretty simple, really: solve a problem for your boss.

There are, of course, a plethora of systems designed to help you more efficiently organize and use your time, and all of them are helpful. Prioritizing, of course, is also a key issue in this area. Unfortunately, in today’s world it too often develops that everything is a priority, and it can be difficult to differentiate among tasks competing for your attention.

But if you can find out what it is that you do, or can reasonably take on, that will solve a major headache for your boss, then you have found your priority. Find out what it is, what the issues surrounding it are, why it’s important; all the information that will help you ensure you understand what will constitute success and remove this aggravation from the full plate of concerns you boss is dealing with. Then do it.

And when you’re done, find another. Do it every day, and perform your duties so that your boss can worry about something else, and know that when you have taken on a tasking, it is effectively one item he or she can happily forget about.

This is a straightforward bit of advice, to be sure. But in an environment of advice that is inwardly directed, it is another reminder to look beyond yourself for definitions of productivity and contribution.

And as you climb the ladder of “bossdom” yourself, train your staff to do the same. It makes for a management development philosophy that is a good deal more organizationally coherent than many that are out there.

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Many thanks to the hosts of the following Carnivals for selecting items from these pages:

• Gracie Passette, hosting the Carnival of the Capitalists, chose the review of The Black Swan.
• Anna Farmary, at The Engaging Brand Blog, hosting the Carnival of Leadership Development, selected Too big for your britches.
• Nikole Gipps, at Small Business Essentials, and hosting this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists, picked Avoiding group think.

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