Leading With An Excessive Workload

How do you successfully lead under an excessive workload?

Dealing With a Crushing Workload

How successful executive leaders address an increase in workload and responsibilities

As executive leaders, we all deal with the constant addition of new ideas, projects and problems. Ambitious leaders often welcome these additional challenges. After all, this is part of why we’ve experienced the success we have up to this point. We enjoy the rush that comes along with conquering new mountains and making a difference in our organizations and the lives of others.

However, just because we leaders like these things doesn’t mean we know how to appropriately manage them. As we grow in our careers, we’re given more responsibility and additional opportunities to contribute. Too often, our primary method for dealing with this increase in workload is the short-sided strategy of ‘press harder and work longer hours.’

Early on in our lives and careers, this appears to work out fine. So well, in fact, that we get more workload in the form of promotions and additional projects.

But there comes a point when we realize that this isn’t working like it once did. When we can’t simply ‘press harder and work longer hours to achieve success,’ what do we do then?

We’ve all heard the saying ‘work smarter not harder.’ But how? Especially when our strategy for success, up to this point in our careers, has gotten us to where we are. 

When an executive (or anyone for that matter) must take on an additional workload, there are only three ways of handling it:

1. ADD MORE TIME

First is to increase our work hours. This can be an effective strategy.  However, it generally only works for a limited amount of time.  For example,  preparing for an important upcoming meeting with investors, a vendor or a client. When we are in important positions of power and are required to give more, sometimes it’s ok to add more time, FOR A LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME. (But not consistently)

2. ELIMINATE OTHER WORK

The second way is to eliminate other work from your plate. From my observations with hundreds of executive leaders over the last 10 years, I’ve noticed that most of them underutilize this option. 

There are a few ways to practice this. You can choose to shelve certain things for a limited period of time. For example, given your current increased demands, should you push some projects out until the next quarter? Are you in a place where you should eliminate certain ‘check-in’ and ‘update’ meetings for a period of time? 

Or you can ‘Eliminate Other Work’ by delegating to others. Not only does it remove it from your plate, but it also provides others an opportunity to learn, grow and improve. 

3. REDUCE TIME ON CERTAIN THINGS

A third option is to reduce time on other tasks. How much time are you allocating to the different individual aspects of your workload? I often find that many executive leaders are either unaware or have an inaccurate perception of how much time is being allocated to individual aspects of the week. For example, I coached an executive who allocated 30-minutes each week to one on one time with each of his direct reports. As he began monitoring his time, he quickly realized that several meetings ran long, some way too long. He optimized his strategy for conducting these meetings and quickly added hours to his weekly capacity. 

Speaking of meetings, the first place to look for some quick wins is within the meetings you lead and attend. How many of your 1-hour meetings can be effectively conducted in 30 minutes or less? Do you need to be present for the entirety of every meeting you attend on your calendar?  Combine this strategy with the delegation action and see where you can work your way out of certain meetings completely over time.

Experts say the most successful and effective people in the world invest at least 10% of their time planning the other 90%.

Stop and do the math for yourself. If you’re working a 50-hour workweek, that’s at least five hours focused solely on determining how to execute the rest. To really make the most of your week, you must be proactive, intentional and strategic. 

Prioritizing planning time as a first step will make a huge difference. But how? Refer back to the list above. Commit to making at least one change this week. And another next week. Rinse and repeat. 

Remember, this work doesn’t happen naturally. It’s not easy either. It requires commitment. But it’s possible. I’ve seen it work time and time again.

If you’d like to discuss your increased workload and how to improve your executive leadership success, let’s connect.