In concluding our three part series on What I Would Tell My Twenty Year Old Self when it comes to leadership, I would tell myself, “Wherever you are, be all there!” I don’t remember who made this point to me a number of years ago, but it’s one I wish I had learned in my twenties. The point is if I am with my wife, I need to be with my wife. In that moment, I can’t be attending to something from work, or thinking about a personal development plan, or anything and do justice to that moment. With the advent of instant access social media, this idea of being all there is even more challenging, and perhaps even more necessary.
How many times have you attended a meeting and as someone is giving their presentation, a person or two, or even you are looking at the portable device on your lap for some information, or at a text? It’s impossible to fully attend what someone is saying or demonstrating while dividing our attention with a mobile device. While the human mind is amazing and can process information 2-3 times faster than another human can speak, thus always allowing for extra thinking while we are listening to someone also, if we are all there, we are using that extra time to formulate thoughts about the comments of the person, whether agreement or challenge or whatever. The truth is a timely placed question or challenge of a fact, offered appropriately, after someone has presented information honors them by showing we were fully in that moment with them.
Great leaders are the best multi-tackers, they are the best at affirming the value of those around the whether co-workers, fellow managers or leaders, family members or whomever. Giving our full attention to someone is one of the single, best ways to show them honor and that we value them. When we are all there with the a person in whatever situation it may be, it permits us to gain the best information, which every leader needs to make decisions; to give the highest value to the other, which every leader needs in order to develop the strongest relationships with them; and to make the best use of time, because we don’t have to go back and fill in blanks from the aspects of the conversation we missed because we weren’t fully attending to it.
While it may seem a minor matter to “be all there,” I have found it to be one of the most helpful aspects of any day in which I succeed in doing it. By being all there, wherever “there” may be, I enjoy those moments most, lead most effectively, and ultimately gain the most value from the time. One final thought: if you cannot “be all there” in a given situation, is it a place you ought to be in that moment? In other words, if you are distracted while being in a meeting, if something is so urgent or important in that moment that you are “somewhere else,” perhaps you need to be in that other place. What I’m saying is sometimes when we practice the habit of being all there over time, it helps us to set our priorities. If the person texting us is truly more important to our leadership in that moment than the meeting we’re sitting through, then we need to leave the meeting and get in front of that other person. Otherwise, we need to put away the electronic device and be all there, wherever there may be.
Here’s to leading better by being all there–today!