beside those that you believe you have mastered, and put an X beside those that you feel you need to work on. Then write out an action plan, including at least three steps that you can take toward mastering each skill.Above all, be constructive.
—Dale Carnegie
We discussed physical health in the previous chapter. Taking proper care of your mind, body, and spirit is essential to leadership mastery. Two other elements of total health need to be addressed: time and family. You may eat well and exercise regularly, but if you constantly feel that you are in a rush and don’t have enough time in the day, stress can erase all your efforts. Similarly, having spiritual fulfillment in your life without the joy of intimate familial relationships would not complete the circle of balance in your life. Making peace with time and creating vital connections with your loved ones are also essential ingredients to optimum personal health and well-being.
Time is really the most valuable resource a leader has. It’s also one of the most challenging and the most interesting. For one thing, no matter what your net worth or annual income or job title, you have exactly the same amount of time as everyone else. Not a minute more and not a minute less. Good time management is simply the art of using each twenty-four hours as effectively as possible.
Whether we’re trying to build an effective organization, plan a vacation, or build a successful marriage, hurry seems to be a common condition. It happens at all ages and income levels. Students juggle homework and part-time jobs. Parents struggle with the competing demands of career and child-rearing. Today, many people even find themselves doubly pressed for time: caring for aging parents while also trying to raise a family. The following simple guidelines can serve as a starting point for reorganizing your time, if you find it keeps getting away from you. Feel free to add your own successful methods for getting the most out of the time you have available. You will find action steps to help you with this at the end of this chapter.
First, get into the habit of using an organizer or day planner of some kind. Keep it with you so that changes in schedules or ongoing commitments can be recorded right away. Then sit down at least once a week and see where your time is actually going. Pay particular attention to the way in which you spend the hours that you are not at work.
Second, avoid energy-draining, time-wasting black holes. Watching television is probably the most common example. While TV can be relaxing or educational, it can also steal precious hours better used for something else. If you’re a habitual watcher, use your organizer to determine how much time you’re actually spending in front of the screen. Then make a plan for reducing your TV time to a minimum.
Third, be realistic about what you can accomplish in the time you have. Overreaching, beyond what you can possibly get done, can keep you stuck in a permanent time crunch. Even if you apply every skill you’ve learned in this program, you can still encounter problems by scheduling ten hours of activity in seven hours of time. For many people, a key step is learning to say “no” to additional obligations whenever possible.
Next, remember this important principle, “When it comes to being organized, every little bit helps.” Chaos wastes time. Order restores it. As you begin implementing a time management program, start small and keep at it. Identify three or four problem areas at home and at work. Then commit fifteen minutes to addressing those specific problems, even if it takes you a week or a month. Don’t go on to anything else until those issues are resolved.
Fifth, make your downtime count. There are moments of uncommitted time in everyone’s day. They may not be more than a few minutes, but you can use them to chip away at things that need to be done. Waiting in a doctor’s office and sitting at the car wash are cases in point. By using just ten minutes a day more efficiently, you can add a few hours to your schedule over the course of a week.
A final point about time management concerns the concept of synergy that we discussed earlier. All of the ways you develop the qualities of a leader in your personal life work together.
You don’t manage your time in a vacuum. When you’re fit, full of energy, and sleeping well, for example, you will find time management to be much easier. Ultimately, this chapter on creating balance is about one simple principle. It’s about being in control of your own life and not letting it control you.
We’ve been talking a lot about how to strengthen your resources. Now let’s examine the settings in which these resources are called upon in your personal life. For most people, this begins with family. That can mean a spouse and children, although increasingly this traditional model of family is only one piece of a much larger picture of how people live.
So when we discuss family, keep in mind that it embraces all the models of what family can mean: single-parent families, unmarried people, extended family, one child, many children, or a group of close friends that functions like a familial support system. How your own family is structured is less important than the time and care you invest in it.
Family is our most important organizational unit. While blood ties are inherently powerful, you get from a family what you put into it. This is true of parenting, of marriage, and of all primary relationships. In much the same way that spirituality seems to enhance people’s general sense of well-being, family is also capable of protecting and enriching us. Research shows that families of all types who come together regularly to celebrate milestones and holidays tend to be freer of dysfunction than those who do not. The same energy you use to play a leader in public is necessary in private too. Lou Gerstner, former chairman and CEO of IBM, makes that connection. During a keynote speech in North Carolina, he told his audience, “Whether it’s in business, or public service, or in your families, distinguish yourself.”
Family is a setting in which two complementary experiences can take place. We can be who we really are, and we can discover or explore new parts of ourselves. If you are a parent, some of your most difficult challenges and your greatest rewards lie in your relationship with your children. Once again, former Chrysler head Lee Iacocca provides insight. While at Chrysler, Iacocca instructed his office staff to put all telephone calls from his children through to him immediately.
By being so completely available to his kids, Iacocca sent them a powerful message about family on his list of priorities. It would appear that Iacocca’s success in the corporate world was matched by his success at home with his children.
Which leads to an interesting question, “How do we judge a successful adulthood?” A successful childhood seems easy to define. It’s protected, secure, healthy, and stable. Superficially, success in adulthood is quantified in terms of money, but is this really useful or accurate? What does money really mean? What should it mean, and what can it never mean? What’s the right attitude for a leader to adopt toward money?
Throughout American history, the central issue surrounding money has been getting enough of it to ensure survival. A huge segment of the population worried about putting dinner on the table. Today, part of the American population remains below the poverty level, but our most widespread pressures about money have changed. The anxiety of need has largely been replaced by the anxiety of want.
Dealing with this anxiety can take many forms. On one end of the spectrum there are people who live by the mantra “Don’t worry, be happy.” They just don’t worry about money the way other people do. They are not wired that way. They don’t worry about their spending or the “what ifs” of retirement. They don’t lie awake at night. They just go for it. Period. To the other extreme, many people worry incessantly about money and not having enough of it. In fact, psychologists report that this is the biggest fear that most people have, surpassing even death or serious illness.
Do you find yourself taking one of these extreme positions or are you somewhere in between? Clearly, the answer lies in striking a balance. A little bit of caution and advanced planning can prevent most financial problems. At the same time, knowing how to free yourself from endless worry is equally important. This is one case in which the real leadership position is in the middle, at the balance point.
In sum, balance and perspective are fundamental to personal leadership mastery: prudence balanced with freedom, work balanced with rest, career balanced with family, and material well-being balanced with spiritual awareness. Leadership in your personal life means investing in your own happiness. You wouldn’t expect a large organization to run on its own, with no vision, no direction, no guidelines, and no leadership. A corporation is not a self-cleaning oven. By the same token, you cannot expect your private life to run itself either. If you don’t take control of it, somebody or something else will.
The ideas of bringing a richness to your life experience and of taking command of the way your life is run bring us to the last leadership lesson of this chapter. You might be surprised to discover that it does not conclude with a bang. In fact, the last component is nothing other than peace and quiet.
Solitude and tranquility of mind are key to balanced and effective leadership. The time and space that you carve out of your busy life to think, to reconnect with nature, and to develop the ability to be alone with yourself should be imperatives on your priority list. Many people find sitting in a quiet space to be very difficult. Noise and the need for connection at all times are addictions and many of us have a bad case. The more electronic our society becomes, the more items we have to plug in and separate us from this simple but essential experience of quiet contemplation. Do not shortchange yourself. Do not mistake solitude for dead time or boredom. With practice, you’ll be able to restore your energy and quiet everyday stress by insisting on some protected quiet time.
Above all, remember that when you put your feet on the floor in the morning, you have the power to make it a good day or a bad day. You are either going to enjoy life in the next twenty-four hours, or you are not. Remember, those hours are never going to come your way again. There are hundreds of things that can irritate, worry, or annoy you. Don’t let them. Don’t let the small things get you down, and if the big things get you down, take a good look to make sure they are really big.
Now that you have these strategies to strengthen your resources and apply to your personal life, you are well on your way to the private side of leadership. Without a happy and fulfilling personal life, professional success is just a job. When the many dimensions of every day are filled with challenge, commitment, love, and humor, then the possibilities are endless.
1. Listed below are the steps you can take toward greater organization of your time. Included are some specific actions that you can take as well. Put a beside those that you believe you have mastered, and put an X beside those that you feel you need to work on. Then write out an action plan, including at least three steps that you can take toward mastering each skill.
• Purchase an organizer or day planner.
• Start using the organizer on a daily basis.
• Avoid energy-draining and time-wasting activities.
• Move the television out of your bedroom.
• Cut down on watching television.
• Set realistic goals. Do not overschedule yourself.
• Avoid chaos and restore order in your life.
• Fill up downtime (like waiting at the doctor’s office or sitting at the car wash) with activities like updating your calendar or writing to-do lists.
• Commit to creating more synergy each day (plenty of rest, nutritious diet, and exercise).
2. When you are disorganized, you will often find that the disorganization serves you in some way. For example, you may be avoiding fully stepping into your true power, because of fear. By being disorganized, you may never have the time to reach your full potential. Write down a list of potential ways in which disorganization might serve you. Then reflect on this realization, and create an action plan to clear your schedule—and the block!
3. One example of wise proactivity was illustrated by the chief executive officer who put in an exercise room at his offices. Write down three creative or innovative ideas that you could implement into your organization to create greater balance.
4. Creating intimacy and connection with family is imperative for total balance. “Father Forgets” is one of those little pieces that, dashed off in a moment of sincere feeling, strikes an echoing chord in so many people. Read and learn from “Father Forgets” by W. Livingston Larned. After reading it, reflect on your life. Where can you find more patience (don’t forget to also include patience with yourself and your imperfections)? Instead of condemning, try to understand. Try to figure out why we do what we do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism, and it breeds sympathy, tolerance, and kindness.
Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.
There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.
At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Good-bye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”
Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive—and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, imagine that from a father!
Remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up from my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped.
You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.
Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.
And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Well, nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!
It is feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I’ll keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy—a little boy!”
I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, son, too much.