Become More Valuable By Being Less Available

Imagine the CEO who is always available. Their office door is always open. If you have a problem, they are there to help you figure it out. If you have a question, they are there to answer it for you. They are never too far away.

I have been working with a CEO like this, and he was burning out. Despite his good intention to be helpful and available to his people, he was unwittingly creating a culture of dependency.

In our coaching time, he began to discover why his 24/7 availability wasn’t working for him or his team. For one, the time and focus he set aside for company goal-setting and strategic thinking suffered continuous disruption. He was often pulled into decisions and projects that didn’t require his input. It seemed everything needed his approval. Moreover, his vision for empowering the next generation of leaders to succeed him was fading.

So I asked, “What would it mean to make yourself less available?” He quickly responded, “I’d take a much needed vacation with my wife, create more time with my business partners, focus my development on a few of our young high potential leaders, and increase time spent with the sales team – my favorite part of the business.” And so he did.

He reconnected with his partners and developed a smaller, more focused leadership team. They began to regularly prioritize increasing their gross margin. As the team became less dependent, he was able to delegate more effectively. These changes granted him freedom to work more with the sales team and to take vacation time with his wife.

This leader saw an opportunity to better leverage his strengths in the business, and delegated more responsibility to other playmakers. Simple shifts like this have a serious impact on a company’s bottom line.

Your organization - from top to bottom - is strongest when everyone is engaged in calculating risk, making decisions, and executing in their own sphere of responsibility.

What adjustments would you make by being “less available” in your organization? Here are a few recommendations based on the changes this CEO made:

• Invest in your best leaders. Strategically invest in your best leaders, and your door will be open to less people. Empower them to make decisions on their own. Celebrate their wins.

• Create a scoreboard. Metrics keep your teams aligned. The CEO above helped his team focus weekly on growing the company’s gross margin. What do you need to measure to ensure your team achieves results?

• Get out of the building. Time away is an opportunity to develop responsibility in growing leaders. Choose someone who can take the lead in your absence. This will provide a great opportunity for mentoring and developing another leader for possible succession. It will be hard for this to happen if you are always around.

• Reconnect with what you enjoy. In this case, the leader enjoyed sales. What part of the company do you enjoy the most? What kind of impact would you have if you spent a little time in that space?

CEOs and senior leaders can spend too much time managing work rather than leading people. We move from meeting to meeting and face constant interruption along the way. Thriving organizations are guided by leaders who strategically deploy their time and focus.