INsight/ Acting with Alacrity

photo by getty on Unsplash

Manila, 14 August 2024 — Acting with Alacrity is about starting your next task with cheerful readiness.

Story

It happened this week. A common issue for leaders who coach with us is finding the best time to take action. As we know, procrastination refers to a tendency to defer action until later. I have also encountered leaders struggling with what seems to be the opposite tendency. They feel driven to take action (much) earlier than it is needed.

You may have encountered the term to describe this latter tendency: precrastination. It was first written about a decade ago, and the research on it is still fresh and inconclusive on several points. Researchers now point out that procrastination and precrastination both have downsides.

The question I reflected on this week was about determining the best timing to take action without falling into procrastination and precrastination. What would be an effective leadership behavior that falls in between these two tendencies? Or should we allow ourselves to choose late or early action depending on the situation?

Challenge

Whenever possible, leaders will opt for a proactive rather than a reactive response. The first question is usually about our awareness. Determining the right time to take action requires that we are aware of the situation and of what we are doing. Awareness comes first.

Second, leaders will practice time management and task management. We know that these set us up for success by adopting a systematic approach that helps us in our decision-making on a daily and weekly basis, supported by one or more purpose-designed apps.

Third, our mindset matters too, and perhaps most. Our effective leadership revolves around engaging in a positive mindset as much as we can. That’s when I came upon Alacrity, a term I hadn’t used before. It describes a cheerful readiness to do something. In other words, it’s about how, rather than when, we prepare to take action.

Question

Regardless of whether acting early or late is more suitable in a particular situation, it is always possible to choose our mindset and to Act with Alacrity. Cheerful readiness can, of course, build on our awareness and our time and task management setup. 

Acting with alacrity can guide us to start taking action early on. For a metaphor, I was thinking of the football players who, when they kick off, are fully aware that play will last for the full duration of the match. There is no early or late, but the whole match to use. What do you think about alacrity and how it can help you in your work?

If you are challenged in your work to get your work-life balance right, and you’d like to overhaul your time and task management as a leader, go ahead and book a free strategy call to share what you want to see happen in your life and work as a leader. Transition is the term we use for your overhaul in the three-month Leader in Transition Program.