ACTivity/ How Leaders Focus

Manila, 12 February 2020 — Focus like a leader: ACE-ing It in three steps.

When we started unpacking the leadership theme of Focus, we looked at three common traps that I often see leaders get themselves into: No Focus, No Clarity, and No Change. 

In today’s post, let’s look at a process of three steps that helps you Focus like a leader. From my experience in coaching leaders in countries around the world, I have seen how this process works without fail, every time. That’s why I am confident that when it comes to focusing like a leader, these three steps will help you ACE It!

The three steps are Assessment, Challenge, and Execution, and together they form the ACE Coaching™ method that I use with my clients.

Step 1: Assessment

An effective process starts with gathering relevant facts. You can also call it data or information. What you collect depends on your purpose: what you want to Focus on. It can be a problem you want to solve. Or a hurdle you want to overcome to achieve your goal.

Focus starts with accepting that you don’t know enough, that you have blind spots. These can be about yourself (Personal World), or about the world around you (Observed World), and the people in your key relationships at work (Social World).

An assessment lets you engage in new perspectives that are critical in finding better solutions.

For example, in coaching leaders, I will ask my clients to do one or more assessments that will expand their perspective. These can range from self-assessments to getting feedback from workplace stakeholders on specific leadership behaviors or as part of a broader 360-degree multi-rater review. 

Doing targeted research using literature review or custom-built surveys can also be helpful, depending on your situation and objective. 

The key question in this first step is: what do I need to know? 

Working to explore and answer that question helps you focus right away. 

Step 2: Challenge

The second step is about identifying a challenge. That is more than a problem because there is a focus on action and results, and calling it a challenge involves making one or more changes happen. Leadership is always about change.

The term challenge is also important because it implies getting out of your comfort zone, unlocking new perspectives, and tapping additional resources and collaboration to deliver on your challenge. 

Finally, while you might engage with many ideas and dreams, you can only take on a few challenges at a time, and that’s a healthy way to focus your efforts.

Could you use goals and objectives when you define your challenge? Yes, you can. Choosing to see your goals and objectives as a challenge will give you a more powerful focus. Achieving it is Your Challenge, rather than some objectified objective ‘out there’ that you may not have fully bought into.

When you formulate your goal as a challenge, you bring a helpful and powerful focus to the table. And you have the comfort of knowing from leadership research that 70% of your leadership growth comes from taking on challenges.

The key question in this second step is: what will I stretch myself to achieve?

If you stretch yourself in all directions, you might not achieve anything. Challenging yourself provides focus.

Step 3: Execution

CEOs and board members know that every corporate strategy is only as good as its execution. The same goes for leaders taking on challenges.

That’s why the third step is about execution: what you will do, and keep doing, to deliver the results you want to see.

This has many elements, from stepping into the right mindset, to persevering with grit, to celebrating progress and wins, and mobilizing resources—including a strong support system—to keep you and your team going until the job is done to your satisfaction.

Focus on execution is essential. The key question here is: how will I make progress?

Leaders know that making progress, and celebrating it frequently in the form of wins, is one of the most powerful motivators we have.  They make celebrating small wins an integral part of their success formula for execution.

Start ACE-ing It

There you have it. Three steps to focus. With these three steps, you can ACE It like a leader.

You can start growing leaders in your workplace using these very same steps of my coaching method ACE Coaching™ and I’ll be happy to support you.

Want to get going with the three steps to Focus like a leader? Then consider joining our international community of leaders called Grow3Leaders. It’s all about learning together through action and feedback, and Focus is our February theme.

Joining is free of charge—not free of commitment: come focused.