Lead Well by Reinventing Yourself

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Guest Article by Zach Clark

You have to reinvent yourself every year.

Yes, EVERY YEAR.

Unless your organizational goal is never to grow, never change, never improve, never increase giving – annual reinvention is a must.

Why?

Your organization’s challenges are new and different because your organization is new and different and at a different level.

You have to renew yourself. You have to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That’s what reinvention is. Think about the strengths and weaknesses that you have. What are your areas of weakness? What are the things you’re trying to learn? How do you need to reinvent yourself? How do you need to be transformed and renewed to face the opportunities in front of us this year?

I’ve thrown a lot at you to consider. Let’s consider three responses.

Reflect

As you look back on your day, week, month – what do you or your organization need to simplify? Too broad? Break it down.

What do you need to delegate?

Are there things that you need to get off your plate? Are there other people, team members or volunteers, who could do some of what you’re doing? Possibly even better?

What do you need to eliminate? What have you done for a while that you don’t need to do anymore? What’s served you in the past that won’t in the present and future?

Improve

All the time, we see and hear about people wanting to improve themselves. Everyone wants to get better. Work out more, eat better, spend more time with donors, invest more strategically in their staff.

But it’s tough for people to improve before simplifying.

You MUST delegate some things. You MUST eliminate some things.

Stop doing things.

Evaluate

  • Assess your capacity and discretionary time.

  • We recommend you use the model week.

  • Your time is the most difficult thing. We hear this from everyone we work with and experience this in our own lives.

  • We only have so much time.

  • We will also never have enough time to do it all.

  • The simple way to begin to change that dynamic is to evaluate your capacity to move forward in development this year.

  • How does one determine their capacity? Look at your calendar. What time is filled? What isn’t?

  • To be a leader means that your time is not your own.

  • You must get clear on exactly what IS on your calendar; everything else is discretionary.

  • You have a greater degree of control over how you use your time than you may realize or feel comfortable admitting.

  • Time blocks on your calendar can be self-explanatory. (Face-to-face meetings. Meet with the team. Follow-up work. Email response.)

  • The more you can plan and plot, the more ideal and productive your day, week, month can and will be.

Your life will not always look like the ideal model, but this gets you closer to spending your time where you will be most effective. Hold yourself as a leader accountable for using time as effectively as possible. Account your influence.

I would love to hear how this impacts your life and leadership and encourage you along the way through text. Click here to text me directly and continue the conversation.