Effective or Efficient?

As a leader you will often be faced with choices of effective or efficient. Always choose to be effective and leave efficiency for the managers.

Every great leader started out somewhere.  They began their leadership journey like everyone does, with no experience.  I like to touch on this fact when I coach other engineers or youth on leadership.  Everyone starts out from square one and it’s up to each of us to determine whether we’ll make the step to the next square.

Stepping into a leadership role is daunting and it doesn’t matter what you’ll be leading.   New leaders, whether brand new or simply taking the reins of a new organization, face an onslaught of emotions.  Each new leadership opportunity brings with it a variety of tangible and intangible factors that can bring the leader to a standstill.

Never a good thing when the team’s looking to you to provide vision or make a decision.

There is a lot you can focus on as a leader, however much of it is noise.  So focus on being effective.  Leave efficiency to the managers and your team.  You need to focus on delivering results.

Christian Knutson, P.E., PMP is international infrastructure development program manager, engineer, and author. He has 21 years of experience in leadership, management, engineering and international relations earned from a career in the U.S. Air Force and is author of The Engineer Leader, a recognized blog on leadership and life success for engineers and professionals.

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