Managing Yourself

Have you ever worked with people who didn’t lead themselves well? Better yet, have you ever worked for someone who didn’t lead themselves well? If you want to be successful in your career, you cannot afford not to lead yourself well.

What does it mean to lead yourself well? It means managing yourself, learning to make better choices by thinking the way a leader does, and developing a better attitude. One of the areas leaders should focus on is self-management.

Manage Your Emotions

Nobody wants to work around an emotional time bomb that could explode at any moment. You may be frustrated about things at work or at home, but don’t let your temper work against you. If you are a leader, or hope to be, it is important that you are able to control your emotions. You must learn when to display your emotions and when to delay them as well.

Sometime showing your emotion to people can be a good thing. Your passion can fire up a team for performance. As John Maxwell says, “leaders see things before others do.” This means you may experience an emotion before the rest of your team. Think about the impact of displaying that emotion may have before you do. The concept of managing your emotions is that you should put others first, not yourself, in how you handle and process them. You should ask yourself, “What does the team need” not, “What will make me feel better.”

Manage Your Time

Many people look at managing time like they manage money. Time is the one nonrenewable resource in this world. We hear the phrase, “make up for lost time”, but in reality, that is impossible. Once time is gone, it’s gone. The better you manage your time, the more you can accomplish in less time.

Since our time is a perishable, nonrenewable resource, what is work spending our life on? How about if, every day, we determine what task is most important? How much time will each task require to accomplish? This is intentional and puts you in control of your time rather than letting time control you. If you find yourself giving more time to a task than it is worth, you know you need to make an adjustment.

Manage Your Priorities

Let me start this off by saying, “everything is not a priority.” If you believe everything you do is a priority, you need to spend time organizing your priorities. Let’s look at a simple formula:

80% of the time – work in areas of your strength (strength zone)

If you are spending 80 percent of your time in your strength zone, you will accomplish these tasks much faster because you are good at it. If it is not in your strength zone, look to pass them off to someone who does have a strength in that particular area.

15% of the time – work in areas where you are learning (growth zone)

We should be striving to grow every day of our life. Look at task that may stretch you our of your comfort zone and allows you to grow. These tasks may take a little longer, but the benefit is that you are learning and growing in that area. This may also create strength areas later on.

5% of the time – work in other necessary areas (things only you can do)

Things only you can do can mean several things. It all depends on your job, position or situation. For example, maybe your signature is required on documents before they can go out to a client, or your approval is necessary for a purchase. If you can’t delegate a responsibility, you must do it.

If it is a strength, do it. If it helps you grow, do it. If your leader says you must do it, do it. Anything else is a candidate for delegation.

Join us next week as we discuss Managing Your Energy, Managing Your Thinking, Managing Your Words, and Managing Your Personal Life.

If you would like more information on how we can help you or your organization improve contact Azimuth Consulting at info@azimuthconsultingllc.com