Setting priorites in leadership is a critical skill. What do your people love in a leader? They are looking for someone who sets clear expectations and identifies top priorities. A good leader can look at the skills and talents of their people and create a successful strategy around that team. They can unite a team and know how to get things accomplished. Leaders can create a system that teams can follow, which creates a well-oiled machine with predictable and consistent results. Teams often need frequent reminders of the top priorities.
You can’t direct people to prioritize unless there is a clear direction of where you are going. How do you go about setting priorities in leadership?
Consider the following when setting priorities in leadership:
What results are you, your department, or your division responsible for producing? Those results add value to the bottom line, whether to make sales, manufacture a product, order parts, or create excellent customer service. The CEO of any organization should be able to sit down with any team leader, department head, division leader and see documented priorities.
Results must be measurable. You can’t improve anything that can’t be measured. People are successful when they are given processes that are governed by priorities.
If you were to interview a potential leader, director, or manager, and they told you that when it came to achieving results, they would analyze parts of a process that produced something for the organization’s bottom line. They’d begin to measure those aspects to keep the team accountable for accomplishing those results. You’d be impressed and want to hire that person.
Good leaders know the pressure of the bottom line. In every department of the organization, the underlying dynamic has to be the bottom line. The result must create a profit, or the company will fall quickly.
Your results must help the organization scale and grow. When looking at growth potential for any business, scalability is critical.
Too many priorities make nothing a priority. You can add clarity when setting these by removing other work that isn’t as important. Other things can be delayed, canceled, or reallocated. Consider allocating more resources to high-priority work.
Clearly defining what each team is to produce can lead to clear expectations and priorities. That clarity leads to trust and respect for leadership.
You might also like our blog on “Leading with a clear purpose”.