New Levels Bring New Devils

As you grow into a leadership role and find more people counting on you, you’ll face more issues.

This is an unavoidable reality you need to embrace. As your organization grows in complexity, leadership tasks pile-up.

JB has some advice here you might not expect. Don’t try to deal with every problem yourself.

He notes that in his experience, 90% of the issues that get brought up will solve themselves. Other people step in or the situation changes. If you distance yourself a bit from these problems, you reduce the number of issues you’re working by 90%. That’s a game changer.

Now you deal with the 10% of problems that really require your perspective. That perspective – as a leader who sees the big picture – allows you cut to a solution on half of these and knock the problem out quick.

The other half will be the ones you have to spend some time with. Let these “crock pot” in your mind. Don’t overthink it; your mind will keep working on the problem subconsciously. Eventually, you’ll have an aha moment where the idea you were searching for suddenly sparks to life.

For the problems you have to really dig into, you have to prioritize. For example, work on one of these issues at a time with the goal of solving it within a week.

Do one thing, do it well, and move on. That’s how you handle those devils – and even enjoy doing it!