When investigating this a little further, I found that despite the mountain of work these managers and executives were getting through, it wasn’t the work they should’ve been focusing on. Somewhere along the line they had started to take on tasks outside of their role requirements or their work wasn’t aligned with the main strategic drivers of the department. Most importantly, it wasn’t the work that was of most importance to their manager. All their good work was sucked into a black hole of sorts because it wasn’t a priority for their manager or their department.

To put it simply, to get noticed, it’s important to prioritise your work based on:

1. The parts of your role that deliver outcomes for your team or department
2. The actions that add value to the culture of your team or department
3. The things that are important to your manager.

With a little bit of concentrated effort, the middle managers I spoke with were able to ‘get noticed’ by slowly shifting their focus and prioritising their work.

Focusing on the things that really matter in the areas above will lift your profile and give greater impact to the things you do.

There is no question that emails, as a form of communication, have become part of everyday life, in particular work life. It enables us to do business quickly and easily across divisions and departments as well as states and countries. But somewhere along the line, emails have become a convenient way of covering ourselves. We copy in anyone and everyone just to be sure that there is no doubt that our position is A or B, or alternatively that we’ve completed a task in a certain way. In doing so, we inevitably create more work for others and for ourselves. Even if it only takes two seconds to assess the relevance of an email, that’s still valuable time. Time that quickly adds up when you’ve got a full inbox.

At the end of the day, it’s about us managing our emails, rather than letting our emails manage us. Some companies have recognised the issues with too many emails and are encouraging staff to have non-email days. On non-email days, staff are encouraged to talk to each other or call colleagues rather than use email. Other managers I know have briefed their PAs on reviewing their emails and filtering them down to only those where a response is required. These emails are dealt with first while other, ‘for information only’ emails are read at another time. There are many different ways to approach managing your emails – the key is to be proactive!

To achieve these benefits with your team it’s important to highlight the word ‘regular’. When I say ‘regular’ feedback I mean ongoing feedback, that is, all the time! I’m not talking about the formal performance reviews that happen annually or bi-annually – that’s all about formal reporting. If you think that these formal reviews get you out of providing regular feedback to your team you’re never going to see the benefits I’ve talked about above. When I say ‘regular’ or ‘ongoing’ feedback I mean every day, or every week. It doesn’t need to be formal. You don’t even need to set up a special meeting. It can be as simple as acknowledging a good draft report when you respond to an email or a pat on the back following a presentation. Similarly, if a team member’s performance isn’t up to scratch, regular feedback such as subtle coaching or additional explanation around requirements can work wonders. At the end of the day, if you’re providing regular constructive feedback, your team should be left in no doubt about how they’re performing.

For those of you who are thinking, delegation is not really for me – maybe it represents a loss of control, maybe you think no one can do the job as well as you or it’s just takes to long to hand over the task – you just need to get over these attitudes. Let me remind you that leadership is not so much about doing, but doing through others. It is not your role to be doing the day-to-day tasks that keep your department or project on track; your core responsibility is to think and be strategic.

This is the foremost benefit of delegation – it gives you time to concentrate on your strategic responsibilities. It is for all intents and purposes, the ideal way to offload all the tasks you shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

Delegation is also a fantastic way to engage your team. Get them involved by delegating tasks that require some level of responsibility and link directly to the success of your department or project. As well as motivating and empowering them, you’ll develop their skills and reinforce your succession plan. For the more driven people in your team, delegation will also be seen as a reward for prior good work and recognition of their growing skills.

If you’re now thinking, ‘great I can offload x, y and z’ I also offer a word of caution – some managers are prone to abdicate responsibility under the guise of delegation. They offload a task without ensuring the team member or group is skilled enough to complete it; problems ensue and the manager wipes his hands of the situation. This is not delegation. At no point during the delegation of a task should you, as a leader, be abdicating your responsibility to ensure it can be delivered appropriately. If at all possible you should be delegating to people or teams with the right level of experience. If you do need to delegate a task to an individual or group that hasn’t got the experience or skills, offer training prior to handing over the task, and provide support and feedback through the process. You’ll find you quickly develop your people’s skills and experience, and delegation becomes a whole lot easier.
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There are two distinct ways to do this – publicly and privately. While both public and private praise reinforces positive behaviour with the individual, praising someone publicly also reinforces positive behaviour with the rest of the team. Whether you’re congratulating someone for solving a problem or rewarding the best salesman, praising staff publicly demonstrates the types of behaviour you want the team to follow.

On the other hand, as the name suggests, praising a team member privately, is more discrete. Showing appreciation and recognising someone’s efforts in a one-on-one scenario is a powerful way to make them feel they’re an important part of the team.

At the end of the day praise and recognition is all about getting the most out of your people. Praising your people both publically and privately is the most effective – and the cheapest – way you’ll ever find of improving effectiveness and generating greater discretionary effort among your people.

It’s a fairly predictable story and not one that is confined to movie fiction – life and art definitely imitate each other. Often people think that when they move into a leadership role they have to ‘act’ like a leader. Conversations that were once casual become formal, expectations rise, relationships are stretched and the working environment becomes suddenly tense.

Lucky for us we’re not in a movie – we can change the story. It’s for us to decide how we lead and my advice is ‘just be yourself’. Don’t try to be anything else. By being authentic you’ll find that you’ll develop strong and effective relationships, and consolidate your role as a leader.

In an ancient psychology ‘work’ is directly associated with survival. That’s why people become so obsessive about work and happily justify the time spent on work activities saying ‘well if I don’t work, then we don’t eat’. It is an easy habit to fall into.

Distancing yourself from this attitude and really looking at your work and your life, and balancing out the time and the effort you spend on each area is important, and has obvious benefits.

Take my friend Mike for example. He’s been married for just over six years and has a young family to care for. Professionally, he’s a project manager, quickly moving up through the ranks of his organisation.  Despite an increasing workload and more responsibility Mike swears by a balanced lifestyle. He finds that he has more energy and can be more productive in the workplace when he makes a conscious effort to spend time with his family, away from the job. Allocating time (whether it be breakfast, afternoons sports or weekends away) to his family and personal activities outside of work allows Mike to recharge his batteries; it also means he doesn’t spend his work time feeling guilty about the not being with his wife and children, and is free to focus 100% on the work at hand.

Not everyone will balance their work and their life in the same way as Mike. At the end of the day, balancing work and life is a very personal endeavour. No one can do it for you – it’s your responsibility, and one that shouldn’t be neglected.

Isn’t that what leaders do? Inspire people to dream and do the impossible?

That’s what Steve Jobs did. When asked for advice and direction by one of his employees while working at Walt Disney he said, ‘dream bigger’. When describing what he wanted to achieve though Apple in the 60’s he explained, ‘I want to change the world’. When explaining what Apple’s new products would do he responded, ‘they will enrich people’s lives’.

People are looking to their leaders to provide them with inspiration, something that will motivate them to achieve and exceed their potential. We need to start thinking differently. We need to start filling our people with hope and possibility.

‘Let’s be realists…let’s dream the impossible’ – Che Guevara

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Just as sports coaches give feedback after every game and during training sessions, managers need to give ‘real time’ feedback to their people. This feedback can be as simple as saying ‘good work’ or ‘next time try giving more technical detail’. Small directive comments continuously and consistently. People need to know the score. They need to know how they’re doing so they can adjust their performance to suit. Put simply give lots of feedback.

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So why do managers do this sort of thing? It’s all about fear and ego. They’re afraid that if their direct reports are seen as being better than them, their job will be threatened. Or their ego gets in the way and they don’t want to admit that those reporting to them can produce better results.

As a manager you should never be afraid of your team doing better work than you. In fact you must encourage them to excel and when they do, you must give them the credit.

Rather than making you look bad this will make you look good. You’ll look like an excellent manager and one who can choose great people and develop them to do excellent work. This will also put you in a great position to be recognised and promoted. In addition, you‘ll have people in line to succeed you when you’re promoted. So make sure you let your team take all of the credit.

To access the extended article visit the Resource Centre.