Increase Your Management Endurance
Management is an endurance sport. It's not a sprint and being great requires strategic growth and development, training and accountability.
Today I spotlight 5 qualities of an Endurance Boss. 5 qualities that enable us to increase our endurance and play the long game.
Pacing
Inputs
Purpose
Humanity
Vision
These are also 5 qualities that enable me to thrive in triathlon. Indulge me as I share both the athletic and management sides of each of these.
#1 Pacing
It’s wild…when I run a half marathon these days, it’s after I’ve swam 1.2 miles and biked 56. Pacing matters. Go out of the gates too hot, and I’m risking the quality of the rest of my race.
Pacing as a manager and leader matters. I see a lot of leaders struggling with pacing. The byproduct? Our old, nasty friend, Burnout. Going too hot, too hard, and you fizzle and burn out.
How’s your leadership pacing feeling?
Is it sustainable?
Do you need to pick it up or slow it down?
#2 Focus on Inputs
Goals are important. Goals are also useless without a strategy to get there. As we like to say, “hope is not a strategy.”
There are a lot of inputs for a great race: nutrition, hydration, heart rate management, fitness, etc. The training process is a strategic layering of duration, intensity, and frequency.
I’ll be more likely to hit my goal because I’m focusing on the inputs.
As a leader, we need to deliver results. Everyone wants to be Best in Class, but what’s the path to get there? Our people need us to pave a clear path and understand how their outputs are actually inputs into the org’s success. We need strategic focus on the right inputs to yield the desired outcome.
How are you feeling about your inputs?
What processes are helping you drive towards your goal(s)?
Where could you strengthen your inputs by just 1%?
#3 Purpose
Purpose is personal.
Purpose is your willpower to make it across the finish line.
Purpose is what gets your people to show up every Monday.
Your ability to lead with your own purpose and understand the purpose of each person is a defining factor between a good manager and a great leader.
What’s your purpose?
What is the purpose of each of your people?
What ways can you tap into purpose to engage people further?
#4 Be Human
To be a successful endurance athlete, you must honor your humanity.
We are not machines out swimming, biking, and running. We’re humans.
We’ve got real bodies with muscles, brains, and hearts. Bodies that wear out, minds that want to quit, souls that need encouragement.
If you want to play the long game as a People Leader, be human. You’ve got to remember the key word in that title: people.
We are in the business of people. People who want, people who desire, people who stumble, and people who soar.
Be a leader of humans. Be a human who leads people.
Focusing on being anything less than a Human People Leader is doing a disservice to your people, your customers, and frankly, your shareholders.
What’s your greatest strength as a Human People Leader?
What would a daily 1% increase in Human Leadership look and feel like?
What pulls you away from your Human Leadership?
#5 Vision
See it, believe it, achieve it.
Triathletes visualize their race for months. We visualize swimming in a pack, getting through transition, all the way to the finish line. We see it before it happens.
Without a vision for what success will look and feel like, you’re a rudderless boat.
As leaders, we need not only to have a vision, we need to be skilled at enrolling others in a unified vision. We need to see what’s possible, believe our people can get there, and execute a path to achievement.
An Endurance Boss sees the field. Sees the possibilities and pulls others into the vision. It’s a skill and behavior we must lean into every day.
What type of leader do you see yourself being in 2-3 years?
What do you see for your team?
What do you long for your team to experience?
Here's to being an Endurance Boss!
What's your biggest take away?
