Most Leaders Don't Need Better Time Management. They Need These 5 Systems.

Speaker A: Hello. Hello, welcome. Or welcome back to Get Organized at Work podcast. I'm Kayla. I'm your host. And today we're going to do something a little bit different. Instead of simply listening to this episode, I'd love for you to participate. Of course, if you're in the car on your run, you can always do this after. But if you're available to do it now, I've created a free tool called the Leadership Operating System Audit. You'll find the link in the show notes or the description if you're watching on YouTube. So go ahead and open it now. Don't worry, it only takes a couple of minutes to complete. As I walk through today's episode, you'll answer five simple questions and calculate your Leadership Operating score. By the end, you'll know whether you're operating proactively, reactively, or somewhere in between. And more importantly, you'll know exactly which system may be creating friction in your work. I'll give you a second to pull it up. Ready? All right, let's begin. The first statement or question asks, I know my top priorities. Give yourself a score from 1 to 5. One means strongly disagree and five means strongly agree. I know my top priorities. All right. The second statement is I have one place where product information lives. Write yourself from one to five, one being strongly disagree, five being strongly agree. I have one place where project information lives. Statement three is I can quickly find meeting notes when I need them. I can quickly find meeting notes when I need them. Strongly disagree, one all the way to five or strongly agree. The fourth statement is I consistently review my goals. I consistently review my goals. Rate yourself from 1 to 5. And then the last statement is I proactively plan my weekly. Give yourself a AH1 for strongly disagree all the way to 5 for strongly agree. I proactively plan my week. After you've answered each statement, add up your score. So for example, if you gave yourself a ah one for any question, one would be one point. If you answered two, that'd be two points, three, three points and so on. So you should have a minimum of 5 points total and a maximum of 25 points total. You, you can go ahead and select how many points you had on the question form and then hit next. So once you hit next, you'll be taken to your Leadership Operating System score and category, letting you know what's working well and what you can improve on. If you'd like help evaluating your own system, um, I've created free resource called the Leadership Operating System Quick Start Guide. Once you submit your Results, you'll be taken to a screen thanking you for taking it and the link to that freebie. All right, let's dive into each system and talk more in depth about what what they mean. But first, I just want to ask you all, how did that feel? Because if you're like most leaders, one or two of those questions probably made you pause. Probably you thought, well, kind of know my top priorities or depends on the week if I check my goals. Or maybe you're just like, ouch, Kaitla. Did you have to make that so painful? And here's what's interesting. Most leaders hear those questions or statements and immediately think they need better time management or discipline. But after years of leading large scale healthcare operations, managing many complex projects, and helping leaders get organized, I've come to a different conclusion. I don't think most leaders have a time management or discipline problem. I think most leaders have a systems problem. So today I'm going to walk you through the five core systems every leader needs. And as we go, you can keep your audit questions in mind, because each one maps directly to a system. And by the end of the episode, you'll know exactly where your leadership operating system is strong and where it may need some attention and what to do about it. I want to point out too that systems reduce mental load, help create visibility for priorities, create consistency, and help you with accountability. And maybe most importantly, systems hold your place when life happens, because life's going to life. Life always happens. Project get busy, priorities shift. Kids get sick, you go on vacation, you get injured. I know we talked about this in last episode, how I broke my toe and had to change my race goals. All of that happens. You fall out of your routines, right? Well, the goal for systems isn't perfection. The goal is to help you create systems that can make it easy to return when life inevitably interrupts your plans. And that's what a leadership operating system should do. And every strong leadership operating system should build on, uh, five core systems. Let's talk about them. The first system is your information management system. Every day, information enters your world through so many different channels. Emails, meetings, teams, chat, phone calls, that idea you had while walking down the hall, requests from your leader or your team, random conversations in the hallway. The question isn't whether information is coming at you. We know it's coming at you full force. The question is, where does it all go? Most leaders don't have a clear answer. There's some information living in their email or their tasks. Sometimes it's in a notebook or sticky Notes. Some of it's in teams and some is being stored entirely in your brain. And that's exhausting. A, uh, strong information management system creates one trusted place where information lives and you can retrieve it easily. Think back to your assessment. The question was, can I find meeting notes when I need them? You gave yourself a score. If you scored one or two, your information management system may be creating unnecessary stress and friction. If you scored four or five, you've likely built a reliable place for information to live. The second system is project management. Projects are different from tasks. Projects can span for weeks, months, sometimes years. Without a project management system, everything feels equally urgent. Uh, a project management system helps answer the following. What projects are active? What tasks are stalled, what's complete? What's at risk? Visibility for projects helps create confidence from your team, your leader, and even yourself. When you can see your work, you can lead your work. Think back to your assessment. The question was, do I have one place where project information lives? Give yourself a score. If product information is scattered across multiple places, then often that's where leaders begin to feel overwhelmed. The third system is task management. This is what most people think productivity is. But the goal isn't a giant massive to do list. The goal is to create clarity for your days. A, uh, strong task management system answers one simple question. What matters most today? Not next month, not next quarter. Today. Every day you make dozens of decisions about where to focus. A good task management system should reduce decision fatigue. Think back to your assessment. The question was, do I know my top priorities? Give yourself a score. Because if everything feels super important, nothing truly is. System number four is leadership management. This is a system most productivity experts never talk about. Because leaders don't just manage tasks, they manage people. And they're expected to drive results. And they also have to manage themselves. You have one on, um, ones. Development, conversations, team priorities, follow up commitments, coaching opportunities, performance discussions. And something many leaders forget to track is the value and the impact they're creating. Leadership work is different from project work. It's ongoing, it's relational, and it requires intentional follow through. Without a leadership management system, it's easy to feel busy while losing sight of what you're actually accomplishing as a leader. That's why one of the questions in the leadership operating system audit asks I consistently review my goals. Because goals aren't just strategic, they're leadership tools. Reviewing your goals helps you evaluate progress, track impact, celebrate wins, identify gaps, and make intentional adjustments. Take a look at your score for that question. If it's low, your leadership management system may be missing an important feedback loop. The best leaders don't just lead. They regularly step back and evaluate how they're leading. The fifth system is strategic planning, and this may be the system that separates proactive leaders from the reactive ones. Because urgent work never stops. There's always going to be another email, another meeting, another request. The question is, do you have a system that helps you decide what matters before your week begins? Strategic planning is where intention becomes action. It's how you align your calendar with your priorities. It's how you ensure important work doesn't get buried under urgent work. That's why the final audit question asks I proactively plan my week. Take a look at your score. Because proactive leaders don't simply react to whatever shows up. They create space to think, margin to plan, and they intentionally decide where their time and energy will go. As I've reflected on leadership over the years, I've noticed a pattern. Most proactive leaders don't rely on motivation to show up, and they also don't rely on their memories. Instead, they follow a repeatable process. They capture information, they organize it. They make a plan. They figure out how to execute it. They reflect, and they improve. I started calling this the Operating Framework Information Organize, plan, Execute, Reflect, Improve. This framework isn't tied to OneNote. It's not tied to Planner. It's really not tied to any specific app. It's a way of being leading and operating. Because leadership isn't about having the perfect tool. It's about creating awareness and intentionality. In fact, if you've been around for a bit, I've been sharing my Proactive Success formula algorithm. And it's this Awareness plus intention equals proactive leadership. And that's exactly what strong systems help us create. Now let's calculate your leadership operating score. You want to add up your 5 answers. Your score should fall somewhere between 5 and 25. Like I mentioned before, once you check that box on our form, it should take you to your score section. If you scored 21 to 25, you're a proactive operator. Your systems are working for you, not against you. You likely have strong visibility into priorities, projects, and goals. Your next opportunity is optimization and continuous improvement. If you scored between 16 and 20, you have a solid foundation. You have several strong systems in place, but one or two weak areas may be creating unnecessary friction. You want to start with your lowest scoring area and strengthen that system first. If you scored 11 to 15, you're in that reactive risk zone. You're likely working hard, maybe very hard, but Your systems aren't fully supporting you, you're likely relying on memory, effort, and context switching more than you should. The good news is that, uh, small improvements can create huge results. And if you scored between five and 10 points, you're in survival mode. If this is your score, I want you to know that you're not alone. Many leaders find themselves here. This isn't a capability or competency problem. It's a systems problem. And systems can be built one step at a time. I got you. The biggest takeaway from today's episode is simple. You don't need another productivity hack. You need a Leadership Operating System. Because sustainable success doesn't come from working harder, just rolling up your sleeves. It comes from creating systems that support awareness, accountability, and intentional action. A, uh, good system will not make you perfect. It simply makes it easier to return when life happens. So, again, if you'd like help evaluating your own systems, I created a free resource called the Leadership Operating System Quick Start Guide. Inside you'll find the complete Leadership Operating System audit score, interpretation, and practical next steps for strengthening each of the five systems we discussed today. So you can download it using the link in the show notes, or if you've already taken the audit, submit your results, and you'll be taken to, uh, wait to get the download for free. All right, thank you so much for listening. I hope this helped you today. And if you wouldn't mind sharing it with a colleague or doing this audit with a colleague, maybe that would be helpful for them as well. Until next week, stay organized, stay intentional, and keep leading proactively. Bye.