Have you ever thought about the constant push and pull of leadership? It’s really a Herculean task when you think about it. In no particular order, leaders are assigned with the task of growing and developing the individual members of their teams, they are held accountable to meet and exceed the metrics their boss assigns to them for the betterment of the company, and, finally, they are tasked with growing and improving themselves. All of this is happening at a time when work-related stress is at it’s peak. Leadership is not an enviable task at all.

Of those three functions, what will we choose to make our priority? Arguably, we will instinctively choose the later two first, ourselves/our job and our boss. Growing and developing our team, which is arguably the most time consuming, will come in third. So the leading part of leadership may come in last?

I didn’t write this post to give you answers, just something to think about. In an age where time is hard to come by, I wanted us all to think about how we are spending it. Leadership should not be taken lightly. We’ve been tasked with leading not managing. And managing is the natural default when we run out of time—but it’s not leadership. Leadership means we made the time for growing and developing our team before we ran out of this precious commodity. And the team is counting on it!

Let’s GO! WE GOT THIS!

Beth Fitzgerald

Managing is the natural default when we run out of time—but it’s not leadership.