By Jo Eismont
The world is constantly speeding up. We spend our working days jumping from conference calls to annual reviews, to checking our ever-buzzing cell phones, to syncing our work calendar with our home calendar and it’s time that we stop and ask: what is left of us, as leaders, to give by the end of the day?
What great leaders must give – regardless of what else is on your to-do list – is time to your team.
Time with your team
According to a survey by research firm Leadership IQ, the optimal time for a manager to spend with those she leads is six hours per week. Employees who enjoy six hours of their manager’s time are 29 per cent more inspired, 30 per cent more engaged and 16 per cent more innovative than those who only spend one hour with their manager in a working week.
Now, you can choose to see that one of two ways. You could feel under immense pressure to offer six hours of your time to each of your team members, and crumble under the weight of the extra responsibility. Or you can choose to see it as a massive (and welcome) opportunity to become the kind of manager who leaves a meaningful, lasting legacy.
What is a leadership legacy?
Effective leaders leave a subtle legacy every time they walk out of a room. Every time you exit your office or a meeting room, you leave behind an imprint, and whether that is positive or negative is wholly up to you. Only you can choose exactly what that legacy looks like; maybe you’d like to build an atmosphere of positivity, a culture of innovation, a high performing team of subject matter experts or a climate of ambition and growth?
Being mindful
Being aware of your leadership legacy is a question of mindfulness. First, you need to recognize that your legacy is not some abstract notion, far off in the future and somewhat out of your control. Instead you should accept that you have direct control of your legacy on a daily basis; by understanding this acutely, you’ll have no option but to move relationship building with your team to the top of your list of priorities.
If you put that six hours in with your team, if you get to truly know them, their ambitions, their fears, what puts them under pressure and what motivates them, then you’re building a lasting legacy, person by person, in increments and on a rock-solid foundation. And in doing that, you’ll go from good leader to great.
Jo Eismont is social media and web editor with Insights Learning and Development