Hi there. We wanted to discuss leadership and boundaries.

I do this work with a lot

of different managers because oftentimes we get into management positions and
there's an underlying belief that says you should somehow know how to be available
to your team all the time. If you're not, you're not doing a good job. Right? So,
one of the things I hear from managers frequently, is the amount of interruptions
they deal with on a daily basis. A lot of managers will say, "I just don't have
time to do my job, I'm so busy dealing with all the fires and all the issues that
are going on with my team." While I think it is symptomatic of a time that we're
all managing and leading an organizations, and the pace and the rapid movement of
our organizations, I also think it's indicative of our undeveloped skill of
managing boundaries and really helping other people recognize that it's not okay to
be available all the time. It doesn't mean that you're mean, or that you're hiding
from your team, or that you're not willing to help, it just means that there are
days and times that you need space just as much as somebody else does to get their
work done. How do we do that? How do we establish those boundaries? So, I want to
talk about three kinds of boundaries. There's first of all the ones that I'm really
just talking about, which is sort of setting up your space and time for you to
focus and do your work. In fact, I recently just read an awesome book by Cal
Newport called Deep Work. Cal Newport is the author and he really puts together a
case for how limited our capacity is becoming for deep reflection and thought. We
are so triggered and so distracted every day, and he talks about how this is
impacting our ability to lead teams and lead organizations effectively. Because we
need reflective time. We need that time to do the deep work to develop strategy, to
innovate, to design. All those other things that organizations need us to be doing
in addition to managing people's time and questions. So, we want to talk to you
about managing your space so all of that can be effective. We also want to talk
about what I call transparency and boundaries, which is how much do you share with
your team as a manager. Then I want to talk about just those physical boundaries.
Sometimes we need to establish those with people. So, the first one is just really
how do you set up your systems? How do you set up the processes in your team
culture that allows you to have your own space. The first thing that is essential
is that one-on-one practice. We have certainly talked about that a ton in this
specialization. Having dedicated one-on-one time and a schedule will allow you to
have more time in your long-term schedule. Every single manager I have worked with
that has agreed with me and put together a one-on-one schedule where they meet with
people consistently, have absolutely seen an increase in their free time. Not at
first of course. Initially rolling out a one-on-one schedule creates more time for
you. You have to find the free time. But if you stick with it, then what ends up
happening is the people on your team know that they're going to have this dedicated
time with you. Then those important but non-urgent items that they need resolved,
they don't need resolved right away can be resolved later because they know they're
going to meet with you let's say next Tuesday at 3 o'clock or whenever three
dedicated time is. So, the first thing if you're first completely frazzled and
overwhelmed, is that you absolutely have to create time and space for yourself by
building an one-on-one schedules with your employees. The second thing I recommend
is something that I learned from my previous boss. He used to call it a daily,
weekly, monthly. Daily, weekly, monthly was a practice we went through as a
management team. What we did is we outlined all of the meetings, all of the
commitments, all of the group goals, all of the group activities that we had
planned on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semiannual, and annual basis. We
did this once a year, and sometimes we had to tweak it. We did this as a management
team. So, what that meant, was I have these important things that I do every day, I
have these reports that need to be generated every day, there are things that I
know I have to complete every week. I meet with my one-on-ones with my staff, I
have team meetings, I generate these particular reports, I have a managers meeting
that I go to. These are things I do every month. Then we went through and we built
the whole schedule out and we called it daily, weekly, monthly. Then everybody knew
what everybody was doing daily, weekly, monthly. So, if my boss knows I have my
team meetings at 11 o'clock on Monday mornings, then he or she knows not to book
other meetings during that time because that's the time that I have my team
meetings. This is a collaborative exercise and they can take work especially if you
work with or for people that are really really bad at managing boundaries. They
just throw stuff on calendars all the time and they don't recognize that other
people have commitments and have made arrangements. But it absolutely can help you
again with your own boundaries, saying this is my dedicated meeting time, this is
my dedicated one-on-one time, this is my dedicated time for generating reports or
calling back clients or what have you. One of the things I'll share to about
boundaries is that people who are not good at managing boundaries will not
understand when you hold your rope. That's just part of the process. But as a
leader, as someone who's assuming a leadership role in your organization, you can
help everybody be better at managing boundaries by modeling this on your own. The
last piece for you about these boundaries, is that you have to establish a schedule
for yourself, and you have to stick with it. So, what that means is let's say your
hours are you get to work typically 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and you don't usually go
home until 5 p.m.. Maybe 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. is just your time. That's time for
you to put down your list, to review your email, to do whatever it is you do, and
you have to honor that. So, if someone comes in and says, "Hey. I'd love to talk to
you this morning." That's time for you to say, "No, I'm doing this and I'd be happy
to meet with you at this time instead." It could be 7:30 to 8:30 in the morning, it
could be lunch time, it could be from 10:00 to 11:30, it could be from 2 p.m. to 4
p.m.. What matters is when someone comes, if you've agreed with yourself that this
is the time you're going to give yourself to focus and someone comes in and wants
to interrupt that, it's important that you honor the time that you committed to
yourself. So, if someone walks, in knocks on your door, and you're in the middle of
that time, I would love for you to say "I'd love to meet with you but right now I'm
working on this. Why don't you look at my schedule and see what other time we can
find to meet today or tomorrow?" That's the hard part. Because we want to be these
open-door managers and we want people to be able to just walk in, but there has to
be time that you are dedicated to your own work and the things that you know you
need to get done as part of your position. Frankly, this is a very powerful
modeling exercise for your team. Everybody should be managing their boundaries. I
want to talk about now this whole notion of transparency. It comes up for me in
boundaries. Because I think that some people are not naturally good at this and
other people just are. But boundaries are also for you. Like, what should you or
shouldn't you share with your team? That is a fine line for managers, right? How
much to reveal. There are two things we should think about. We should think about
how much do we want to reveal about what we know about the company? Because we're
managers we might have some information. And how much do we reveal about ourselves
and who we are as individuals? I don't really have a perfect answer here, but
here's what I will say. If you overshare information that interferes with your
brand and your reputation. too much personal information for people especially when
you're in a leadership position or power position can feel burdensome for others.
They don't know what to do with it and it can also compromise your role as a
leader. Too little information has the opposite effect, but equally frustrating and
challenging. Which means if I share too little information about myself, nobody
knows me. I can come across as cold and aloof. So, we want to share information
that's relevant, chit-chat sort of stuff but we don't want to be talking about what
we're doing, you know, dancing on tables at 2:00 in the morning or whatever. We
also don't want to say so little to the point that nobody even knows if we're
married or have children or take vacations, right? There's a balance. So, there is
something to keep in mind with transparency. The same thing is true with what goes
on in meetings and information that you might have access to that staff doesn't
have access to. There are some things, because you're in a management role, you
just don't share until the time is right. If you become someone who shares
information outside of the circle of leadership team, you will lose credibility
with your peers, and that can be very painful. It's a painful spot to be in because
you stop knowing what's going on and people lose trust. But we also want to be able
to tell people what we know is going on that is relevant to where they are right
now and I appreciate that as also a delicate dance. The question that I encourage
leaders to always have is, is what I'm about to share organizationally relevant or
am I wanting to share this information so I can build a connection with my staff?
Am I wanting to share this so I look like I'm on the inside? Do I
want to share this to create an opportunity for connection? Those are typically
the negative reasons that people gossip or share information that really isn't
theirs to share. Organizational relevance is typically a good place to go. So, does
this help my organization for my staff to know this right now or is this just
because I want to look cool and I know what's going on? There's a dance there,
right? Especially when you're a new manager. It's kind of fascinating because you
get privy to a lot more information and then you don't know what to do with that.
So, I invite you to always have those reflections going on because they do. How
much information you share does have an impact on how people experience you and
ultimately what they think about you. Lastly, I want to talk about physical
boundaries. A lot of us, a lot of us have to work on managing what people do or
don't do at work. We've established, right, through many of the lessons so far that
we can't make anybody do anything and not do something, but we can set a boundary
for what our expectations are. But a boundary is direction for my behavior, not
direction for someone else's behavior. Okay? I'm going to say that again. A
boundary is direction for my behavior, not direction for someone else's behavior.
So for example, let's say that someone at work is swearing and I don't like
swearing. I don't like to be around someone who swears especially at work. What a
lot of people will do is they will say, "You need to stop swearing. That's rude.
That's disrespectful. That's not okay. You need to stop swearing." So, what they're
trying to do is manage someone else's behavior. Unfortunately or fortunately,
depending on your perspective, we know that people only manage their own behavior
by managing what they're thinking. Right? Now, if they care about what you don't
like, for instance swearing, they may stop. But that's because they want to, not
because you told them to. Boundary is the opposite. A boundary is direction for my
behavior not yours. So, if someone is swearing, how I set a boundary is I say I'm
uncomfortable with swearing. If you continue to swear, I'm going to leave the room.
If you continue to swear, I'm not going to lunch with you. If you continue to
swear, I'm going to step out of the office. So, you can keep swearing, but if you
keep swearing, here's what I'm going to do. So, a boundary is direction for my
behavior not theirs. You can even see this a little bit in some of our
accountability conversations. A lot of times what happens when someone is not
performing, we say "You need to change your performance or your going to get
written up. You're going to get terminated." So, we're trying to tell someone to
manage their behavior in a way that makes it like I'm telling you what to do and
you need to do what I say. Instead, accountability conversations are much more
effective when we say, "If your performance doesn't improve, I'm going to continue
the documentation process." So, the boundary is direction for my behavior, not
their behavior. I'm setting it up to say if you continue to miss goals, I will
continue to follow this process, versus, you need to hit these goals or you're
going to get written up. Do you see the difference? I hope so. So, boundaries are
really valuable. There are two keys here. First of all, think about the behavior
that you would like to direct for yourself that you are willing to execute on. You
have to be willing to follow through on that boundary. So, if people gossip and you
go to lunch with them and you're really uncomfortable with their gossip, a
reasonable boundary might be to say, "Hey, I really love spending time with you,
but I'm not comfortable with gossiping about colleagues and coworkers. So, if you
keep doing that, I probably won't come to lunch with you anymore." Now, that's a
very reasonable boundary for you to set, but are you willing to go through with it?
Because if you do, that means you're isolating yourself, right? I don't think
there's anything wrong with that. It's just if you're going to set a boundary, you
have to go through with the boundary. We can't use it as a threat. We're not trying
to manipulate people, it has to be an honest position that you're taking. So, that
means we have to be clear and make sure that we like the behavior we are choosing
for ourselves based on our boundary. So, keep in mind, we've got boundaries around
time and making sure that we put some systems in place that allow for you to have
your own reflection time and deep work. We've got boundaries and thoughts around
transparency, and how much to be sharing with people in our team and about our
organization. Then we have physical boundaries. Just things you need to put into
place that are direction for your own behavior based on what someone else may or
may not be doing. Those are the three kinds of boundaries that you'll want to
consider as you're forming your coaching philosophy.