As the boss, you may think that leadership is all about making the plan, communicating the plan, and measuring progress.

That’s kinda true, but it’s not the whole story. Not even the most important part.

The plans create a structure and organization. Great! But rarely do they create the focus and energy for getting results. That comes from where you spend your attention.

Are you spending time gathering folks’ inputs? The message is that you care what they think.

Are you spending time creating nice presentations? The message is that you care about looking good in that context.

Are you spending time analyzing the financials? The message is that you care a great deal about money.

Are you spending time traveling? The message is that you care about others outside the organization.

None of these is a bad thing. It’s good to be on top of the financials, to market well, to relate to your people.

The problem comes when things get out of balance. If you’re meeting with lots of external partners and bosses but not your team, the message is that you DON’T care about the people who work for you. If that’s because the team is working really well and you trust them to a great degree, then they darned well better hear that message. Repeatedly.

In the same way, when you’re focused on the internal processes but don’t interact much with customers, they’ll get the message that you don’t care what the customers think, perhaps are hiding things, and are disconnected from the market.

All of this is about where you put your attention. You might think that it’s about how much time you spend in each important area, but that’s not the case. Sometimes a little ten second interaction in the hallway can have just as much impact as three hours working on documents.

Focus your attention on where you want to have the biggest impact, both short term and long term. It’s that simple. And for even more impact, TELL people where you’re going to be focusing attention in the future. It’ll help them help you.