Desire. Direction. Leadership.

If you ever try to do something and you don't have the desire to do it, how much effort did you give it? How much energy did you expand upon it, or did you dabble and give up?

Oftentimes, in leadership, we see leaders who want to have a direction but lack the desire to get there. They want to have a winning team but lack the desire to put in fundamental work.

We see this in leadership because desire takes time and effort, and effort is about being consistent and being consistent gives us direction.

Take a moment and read that line again, and then read it one more time and make it a routine habit in your life, especially if you're a leader.

One of the biggest mistakes I see young leaders make, or newly promoted leaders is the fact that they have so many different directions they want to go; they are excited about achieving success and oftentimes want to prove their worthiness of being called a leader that they lack desire to give 100% of their intentional energy to reaching each destination. It's not an intentional choice, but rather, their leadership development lacked the opportunity to learn or discover this segment.

There's a phrase I used to tell all my leaders, and it went like this: “You can do one thing that accomplishes 10 results, or you can do 10 things that accomplish only one result. Which one takes up more of your time?”

And I would say this often to my leaders because they would be so focused on trying to accomplish so many things that when we step back and look at what they needed to accomplish, it could have been done through typically one “root” direction. This is where desire comes into play, and this is where desire ultimately affects direction, and direction affects leadership.

A great leader knows that desire takes time, effort, and consistency, and when those three components are at hand and needed to be successful, that same great leader knows that the direction they must go needs to be given full attention.

To get a little more specific, I see this with new leaders who struggle to engage with their teams and connect to build genuine and authentic relationships. Many newly promoted leaders I work with think the title means the relationship is already established. So when it comes time for that individual to step up as a leader and take a direction, the desire is often lacking what is truly needed to connect with their teams.

The fix for this is for that leader to step back and understand that they cannot transfer what they don't possess. This means that if they're uncomfortable with speaking to people or initiating conversations, it will be extremely difficult for them to transfer that into their day-to-day conversations with their employees. This is where direction comes into play.

A leader needs to know the direction needed for them to create the desire to engage in conversation with initiation in order to engage their employees to begin building the foundational relationship equity needed.

The direction is lost when that leader identifies that they need to become more extroverted and take initiative and conversation but does not do the work to improve or allows the ego to outweigh the knowledge required for continuous improvement. The desire does not match the direction, and the direction does not align with the desire; therefore, the leadership will become capped.

We see this cap effect happening from 2022 to 2023 as employee layoffs, quitting, turnover, and employees claiming burnout have reached an all-time high of 198%.

Now I want to clarify that some of this is not the leadership's fault, but the majority is rooted in the culture in which those leaders work. There is a realization that employees, when given every resource and every opportunity to develop themselves, do not partake in that process and choose to operate at a subpar level.

This does become the leadership's fault because they allow that individual to continue to work in that environment or with others, which spreads negativity and complacency like wildfire. Just as one smile can lighten up a room so can one bad attitude take down an entire organization.

We have seen those leaders throughout history, and I'm sure throughout your career, you possess the desire to be the best, but also the desire to bring the team with them and push the individuals on their team to become their best. That is when leadership is at its most vulnerable and beautiful state because the direction is not a selfish one but one of group success versus individualized gain. That is the desire that leaders should strive for and do everything to make that their only direction.

One of the biggest obstacles to accomplishing this that I hear often is regarding time and time management.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day, and you and I have those exact same seconds.

No one gets more seconds, and no one gets less seconds in a day, no one borrows more seconds, and no one sells seconds. Every one of us has 86,400 seconds in a day until the day we die. Once we realize that each of us is given the exact same number of seconds in a day then we can start to home in on the desire and direction in which we fill our schedules up with. I understand that some jobs, some tasks, some companies load schedules up like no other and so the competing priorities might be a little more complicated.

To this, I say if you are in a leadership position, then you have the ultimate ability to look at what you are compounding on your teams, and if your direction is crushing their desire, then their desire to follow your direction will be crushed.

If you are not in a leadership position and you're looking at your schedule or workload and can never get anything done, before blaming those above you or the company, there needs to be a hard look at what you are doing with your time. There are many programs out there that will tell you how much time you spend on your phone on what program on what app you're viewing that will allow you to see if you are truly being effective with your direction and if your direction is interfering with your desire.

I used to have employees always saying, "Dustin I never had enough time to get anything done."

If you feel the same way, I would map out your time, including your phone time, breaks, and conversations. Let's look at your 8-hour workday, and after doing that exercise, what we find is that there are typically two to three hours of wasted unproductive time. Those two to three hours gain back per day per week would give you ample time to complete what was needed and leave time for development. Again, the problem is that when we do not have a desire, our direction is often missed.

The biggest indicator that somebody is struggling with their direction and their desire is when they start to talk about not having enough time. There are some companies out there that truly overload their employees with inconsistent "ask" and task which does not allow that employee to give 100% effort to complete those assignments.

This is a big red flag to me that their leadership has priorities mixed up or they are very unclear on their direction, which again is followed by a lack of desire to have clarity.

To bring all this home and to bring it home to you as a leader. I want to encourage you to self-reflect on your desires and see if they align with the direction you are trying to go.

Your leadership and your leader’s leadership are all about influencing positive direction with positive desire- nothing more, nothing less. Leadership can influence greatness, or it can create complacency. Leadership can influence positivity, or it can crush inspiration. Leadership can inspire creativity, or it can stifle development. Leadership is driven by the desire to have a clear direction which is the positive influence on the organization.