Fundamentals of Level Three Leadership

4. Seeing What Needs To Be Done

Concept

The first element in the Leadership Point of View is to see what needs to be done. Managers and bureaucrats wait for someone else to clarify what’s important and what we should do about it. Leaders have the ability to cut through a fog of extraneous data and analysis and home in on the core issues. Some people seem to have this ability innately, but I suppose that virtually everyone has had to learn this skill. Clearly, toddlers cannot see the bigger picture and don’t have the ability to cut to the chase.

The number of priorities that most organizations can deal with is limited. Leaders who see 10 things to work on will likely dissipate their energies and those of their people to the point that nothing ...