Ask, “What Needs To Be Done?”

 

I could not believe what my eyes were reading and what my ears were hearing. While I sat in a physical and mental posture of learning, I waited for my Professor of Record in a doctorate program to share the first point of his opening lecture entitled “Becoming the Leaders We Need to Be.”

The first point: Leaders do what needs to be done.

My first reaction: I felt disappointed; the point seemed too obvious and too simple. However, as I continued to listen, I realized that it was neither obvious nor simple. Even though the statement was framed with simplicity, applying the principle is far from easy.

Effective leaders ask, “What needs to be done?” These are the exact words used by leadership guru Peter Drucker.

Interestingly, both of my professors—Dr. Leith Anderson and Peter Drucker—began explaining this principle with nearly the same sub-point: Notice that the question is not, “What do I want to do?”

Admittedly, answering the right question is difficult. Yet it opens the path to accomplishing what is best for the enterprise—be it a business, a ministry, a family, or even a healthy self.

Typically, the answer brings several topics, tasks, and tensions to the surface. Most leaders feel tempted to argue for more than one top priority. Ignoring some issues in favor of the highest initiative might seem naïve or shortsighted. Nevertheless, we must focus our attention on one thing at a time. To be effective, you must identify what needs to be done and commit yourself fully to that one thing.

Here’s how to proceed: The question “What needs to be done?” should be viewed as strategic rather than tactical. In other words, it should be considered within a one- to three-year timeframe. Within that boundary, we can rephrase the question as: What is our highest priority over the next one to three years?

The answer to the question could be what we should stop doing as well as what we should start doing. Certainly, we will have several competing answers. Then what?

How to Prioritize Tasks as Leader in Five Steps:

  • Step One: Try to have no more than a few key initiatives and then prioritize.
  • Step Two: Ask, “What is best for the enterprise?” This question is especially important to family-oriented organizations that tend to promote on the basis of relations over performance.
  • Step Three: Ask yourself which one of the top priorities are you best suited to lead and most important for the enterprise. Make that initiative your answer to the question, “What needs to be done?”
  • Step Four: Delegate other priorities to capable team members and create a communication and empowerment system.
  • Step Five: Once your highest initiative is accomplished, ask yourself the same question again instead of moving on to the previous ranking of priorities. Rarely do the priorities stay the same especially when an organization is achieving its goals.

Focus has always been an important ingredient in accomplishing goals. Ask yourself what needs to be done; otherwise, you will tend to gravitate to what you want to do which is rarely the right thing.

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