[February 21, 2015] Advice my dad always gave me as a little league baseball player at bat was to keep your eye on the ball. He said if I wanted to hit a homerun, I had to watch the ball from the pitcher’s release until my bat connects with it. To be a leader means also keeping your eye on the ball … staying focused on what’s important.
Experience with junior leaders tells us that staying focused is one of the more difficult traits to develop. Some never really learn and eventually wash out as military leaders and business managers. Surprisingly this is common. Does this mean that senior leaders sometimes also take their eye off the ball? Yes, and the consequences can be big.
Senior leaders have a lot on their plate to do. They are very busy people and are expected to handle many important tasks simultaneously. We’ve all been there … suddenly we’re given extra duties and something big happens that we must attend to. Personally I remember the day I was tasked to coordinate the Coalition’s engineer effort with the military “surge” in Iraq and found out that I was also to be the acting Senior Engineer and Director.
Opportunities are grasped when a leader can willingly and successfully juggle several major tasks. It requires a high level of focus but also the poise to delegate authority to others, increase the confidence in others, and expand your network … all simultaneously. Fortunately senior leaders have the relevant experiences to use as a basis to their actions that acts as a signpost to the road to success.
In most nations we are often critical of our politicians who lose focus – those who cannot keep their eye on the ball. They too have many things going on, important things, and without experience they often overlook small and big stuff. The affect of this failure can be dramatic. Others simply refuse to act and yet the result is the same – failure.
In Little League I never hit a homerun but I could hit the ball (occasionally). Oh, I could also steal bases because of my speed but also because I kept my eye on the ball.
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