There are so many things that can trip you up as a leader, or make it much harder for you to be the leader that you could be. One of the decisions leaders face is accepting the fact that there’s no way you personally can know everything that’s going on in your business. You can’t be everywhere at once, can’t do everything every day, and can’t be every person at every level of your organization. Even if you’re a solopreneur or running your own business, it’s been a very long time since one person has done it all or knew it all (hundreds of years maybe even). So if you look at most businesses, the leaders who are able to say they really have their finger on the pulse of the business are those who have a team that keeps them updated on the information they need to know, including information that may have either slipped by them or they don’t even know to ask about but is really important to know.
If you’re following along with the many holidays throughout the year you may know that Purim is on Sunday. It’s the remembrance of when Queen Esther chose to be courageous to speak uninvited with King Xerxes I in order to save the Jewish people, her people, from destruction at the command of an official named Haman (it’s a story that also appears in the Bible). Whether you’re leader of just a few people or enough people to fill a nation, most leaders would not want to lose a significant percentage of their people essentially overnight. So whether the King didn’t understand what the edict he had signed meant (the context) or just didn’t read it, it took Esther’s speaking up to get him to understand the consequences of such a law and save the Jews, and as a result there’s now a celebration each year of this event.
At the center of all of this is trust. King Xerxes I trusted the wrong person and as a result almost got the Jews killed, but fortunately it’s not usually that dire for the rest of us as leaders. That said, we do need to be smart about building relationships with and putting trust in people who can help us get the information we need to know with the appropriate context. Maybe that looks like a daily/weekly/monthly email from each of your managers or top leaders or whomever is in a position to get a lot of information and be involved in different day-to-day aspects of the business. Maybe it’s a subscription to a few newsletters that help you stay on top of what’s changing in industries that affect your business including marketing and legal from experts that you trust. Maybe it’s monthly meeting with certain stakeholders to make sure that you haven’t missed anything they deem super important or noteworthy or go over things they see to be potential or current issues that may or may not be being addressed.
Most of all, don’t forget to listen and hear what your people have to say. If you’ve entrusted them to take a leadership role in some aspect of your business and then asked them to keep you in the loop, don’t be dismissive or ignorant towards the invaluable information they send your way. Maybe you’ll have to work with them a bit initially to establish how much detail you need on various reports or updates, but that little effort is worth it to get the information you need to make the big decisions and be prepared for how things may be changing or may need to change. How do you stay updated about everything going on in your business and the business world?