I’ve worked with leaders across a variety of sectors over the years: healthcare, higher education, NGOs, political advisory boards, and intergovernmental organizations.
From surgeons to university rectors, UNESCO and the G7 to local nonprofits, I’ve observed one common trait among leaders:
They’re busy. Really busy.
When working with these leaders, it’s necessary to create systems that honor their time while tapping into their unique insights—an approach I’ve been refining through years of practice.
Over the next few newsletters, I’ll share my favorite strategies for breaking through the busy-leader bottleneck to keep strategic initiatives moving forward.
Six truths about working with busy leaders
Busy leaders are in high demand for good reason. Their expertise and experience mean that they’re frequently tapped to serve on committees, advisory boards, and important initiatives. Usually, this work is on top of a 50+ hour workweek.
Personally, I find that working with these individuals is inspiring and empowering. They push me to excel, and I love helping them achieve their big-picture goals.
But there’s also a downside: projects depending on their involvement might face delays if they’re too busy attending to their other responsibilities.
I used to find these situations frustrating. I would try everything from friendly reminders to false deadlines, usually with only minor success. About 90% of my clients have told me they face similar challenges.
I’ve learned that approaches that work with “normal-busy” colleagues don’t work with high-level busy leaders. It doesn’t matter how cordial they are, or how personally invested they seem in a project.
Before I provide you with some tools to get work done, let’s acknowledge some fundamental truths about busy leaders:
- Truth #1: They want to contribute. Leaders join initiatives and organizations by choice. If they’re on your nonprofit board, it’s because they value your cause more than the dozen other nonprofits that approached them. Established leaders don’t need resume padding.
- Truth #2: They’re not maliciously ignoring you. They’re managing flooded inboxes and jam-packed calendars while spinning a dozen plates and putting out several fires that are burning hotter than yours.
- Truth #3: When reading your e-mails, they’re likely using their phone during brief moments between appointments. While you’re composing long messages on a computer screen, they’re often reading and responding on a small device during “found moments” throughout the day.
- Truth #4: Their meeting-heavy schedules can crowd out time for reflection. Back-to-back commitments, while necessary, often leave little room in the calendar for sustained, focused work.
- Truth #5: They have less control over their schedules than you might expect. Even if they have a scheduling assistant, their calendars fill with unavoidable appointments and meetings with senior leaders. In health care settings, it could be clinical duties; higher ed professionals are locked into a particular teaching schedule.
- Truth #6: They are navigating a period of unprecedented change. Today, leaders are not only managing their regular responsibilities, but are also adapting to new political, financial, social, and environmental realities. Delayed decisions, postponed meetings, and shifting priorities aren’t a reflection of your project’s importance, but rather their necessary response to rapidly evolving demands.
What can be done?
None of these truths are meant to be excuses for leaders who are hostile or chronically unreliable. Nor are they problems for you to solve.
Yet throughout my career, I’ve found effective ways to work within these constraints to engage busy leaders, capture their attention, and transform them into vital partners.
In the next installment, I’ll share specific tips for email communication with busy leaders.