YOU'VE GOT TO OWN THE PEOPLE PROCESS

Admittedly, being a leader is often like drinking from a fire hose. It's overwhelming. There are so many things to do, so many priorities. You may be tempted to delegate away the people piece as yet another task on an overly long to-do list. After all, for finance issues you usually turn to the CFO and the finance team. It would seem only natural to hand the people process over to the people experts—human resources.

Human resources can certainly help. In fact, HR is an invaluable resource for you as a leader when it comes to devising the talent management and leadership development process. I believe HR is one of the most important functions in the company. The people process, however, must be owned by you. One of the most important components of your leadership is making sure that you have the right people on your team to set a clear direction for the enterprise and to execute the strategy.

Even if you feel time-deprived with too many things to accomplish, you must make people a priority. Otherwise, you will continue to be swamped with multitasking and overwhelmed with details. Here's why: many managers delegate the people process to HR because they don't have the time to deal with it themselves. And the reason they don't have the time is that they don't have the right people. It's a vicious cycle that can only be broken if leaders emphasize talent management and leadership development. By doing this, they will have the right people in place to whom they can delegate with confidence, knowing their team members are aligned with the values of the organization. In other words, the more time you put into the people process, the more productive you and your entire team will be. You will no longer feel the burden of needing to do everything yourself.

If you do not have the right people in place, then you will have to accept the status quo. You will continue to be in perpetual motion without a moment to think about the bigger picture. This is an entrenched problem in many organizations, and it can sneak up on you and become a bigger issue as you move higher in the organization. When you are a first-level manager with two or three people reporting to you, it's possible to micromanage everything they do, even though that's not a good idea. As you move up, becoming a senior director or a vice president, micromanaging fifty or sixty people is tougher and will consume most of your time. When you are a senior executive (assuming you would even get to that level without empowering your team), it is impossible to micromanage hundreds (or even thousands) of people. If your habit, though, is to tell yourself, “I can do everything myself” or “I've got to keep close tabs on everything they do,” you are not only failing to develop the talent on your team but also short-circuiting overall leadership development. If you are not aware of the problem, you will most likely go up in flames.