The Four Primary Tasks of a Senior Leader

I’m sure you’ve heard of some version of the 80/20 rule. One version is that 20% of the folks do 80% of the work. This seems true to me at times, but that’s not my favorite 80/20 rule. My favorite applies to senior executives.

Most senior execs spend 80% of their time doing what someone else could do and only 20% doing the things only they can do.

The most successful leaders, however, flip it. They spend 80% of their time on what only they can do.

It sounds simple enough, but it’s a fight to get here. Senior execs usually are well experienced and full of opinions, so they find themselves in the weeds daily.

Instead, we must find our swim lane, which is almost always narrower than we think. From my experience and research, a senior leader has just four primary assignments.... Keep reading

For almost two years I sojourned with a new church plant whose young pastor was driven by perfectionism. He had a real problem delegating tasks to others and tried to do everything himself. The culture of his denomination reinforced this tendency in him. He was also new to church planting: it was his first time planting and leading a new church. He had previously been a youth minister at a large church. He was a good preacher and his preaching attracted newcomers to the church. The new church also benefited from a change in pastors and music directors at a larger church of the same denomination in the area: a number of members from that church would migrate to the new church. However, I believe that the new church would have been more effective in reaching and engaging the unchurched if its pastor had been more willing to delegate important tasks to others.