The Highest ROI Leader: Become A Top 1% Leader In One Hour Each Day.

Read Time: 3 minutes

The most consistent complaint I hear from leaders:

"I just don't have enough time to manage my team well."

But here's the harsh truth:

You don't have enough time because you don't manage your team well.

And even if you believe this (and trust me, you should), the demands on your current reality can seem like an impossible hole to dig out of. 

But it isn't. 

If you commit to a focused hour a day for a month, you can dig out and finally start to get ahead. 

As leaders, our job is to maximize our team's impact. While the choices we face can seem endless, the levers that will move the needle are not. 

I ruthlessly optimize my week around this equation. 

With that, here's your high ROI leadership schedule.

Monday's Focus: Commit

Review Called Shots (15 minutes)

My team emails me (and CCs the team) the 3 to 5 items they're committing to accomplishing this week. I review for context in optimizing my week (below) and follow up if something material is missing.

Optimize My Week (45 minutes)

I optimize my calendar (in order): 

• What's required to accomplish my "must-dos"?

• Is my ongoing meeting cadence protected? 

• Can I create bigger deep-thinking blocks?

• Is 20% unscheduled so I can adjust?

You can't lead others until you can lead yourself. 

Tuesday's Focus: Create

Opportunity Scan (30 minutes)

I have a profile of each person on my team. I know their goals (personal and professional) as well as their profile (strengths and weaknesses as well as capabilities proven and potential). 

I focus on 2 people each week and source opportunities that open doors or give them a chance to stretch. 

Inspiration Source (30 minutes)

The best leaders I've worked with have an insatiable curiosity and a willingness to go deeper than their peers. But in the day-to-day grind, you can blow past the signs that you might be missing something. 

I use this time to ask myself, "How am I getting smarter?" It could be a call with someone outside my natural network or refreshing my reading sources on a new topic of interest. The goal is to renew my sources of creativity.

Wednesday's Focus: Connect

Internal (30 Minutes)

When my team was small, I'd grab lunch with one each week. When it grew larger, we ate in small groups of 3-5. My focus was on getting to know them personally. The power of keeping it casual and personal is that valuable business intel will inevitably pop up unfiltered. 

And even if you duck out at the 30-minute mark, encourage them to stick around and keep going. These cross-team conversations create meaningful connections. 

External (30 Minutes)

I have a list of relationships I'm nurturing and talent I'm getting to know that might be additive to my team down the road. I send six of them a note to check in, share an article of mutual interest, or make an introduction. 

And the math adds up. I stay connected to 75 people once a quarter. This means roughly 10 people for 7 critical roles. All in 30 minutes a week. 

Thursday's Focus: Cut

No one tells you this, but one of a leader's primary roles is to resist the human impulse to add. Add steps. Add people. Add complexity. 

Inefficiency and bureaucracy are cancer to a high-performing team. And you're either the cause of the cure. 

Editing Session (60 Minutes)

Review your team's 1:1 dashboards and look for patterns:

• What can we stop doing? 

• What can we streamline? 

• What can we automate? 

• What can we defer? 

An hour a week seems like a lot, but compared to the hours a week your company is adding stuff, it's the bare minimum.

Friday's Focus: Confirm

Called Shots Reprise (15 minutes)

Remember those Called Shots from Monday? On Friday morning, I expect each person to respond and tell me whether they met their commitments. And if not, provide a sentence with a self-reflection as to why. 

Loom Update (45 minutes) 

Ditch the written update to the team and record a 5-minute Loom video. It lets you be less polished and lets them hear your tone. It also lets you pull up artifacts and show them the info while you tell them the story. 

I try to highlight something in each category:

• Update on Key Metrics

• Meaningful Wins/Losses

• Problems We Solved/Stuck

• Celebrate People Professional/Personal

• My Insights From The Week

Note: If you're a long-time reader, you might recognize these questions from my 1:1 Dashboard. And in case you missed it, I hosted a free workshop this week on setting one up on your team (access the recording here).

Saturday's Focus: Chill

You thought you got the weekend off? Wrong. 

But you can't pour from an empty cup. Make sure you do whatever is necessary to refill yours: 

• Close the laptop and set down the phone. 

• Spend time with loved ones.

• Get outside and move. 

• Hit a concert. 

I'll forgive you if you make this one longer than 60 minutes. 

Sunday's Focus: Consider

Break The Bottleneck (60 minutes)

This is the most crucial block of the week. Every team always has one bottleneck. The singular problem is the choke point to success.

Do you know what the bottleneck is? 
-> If not, use your time to name it. 

Do you understand what caused it?
-> If not, diagnose the root cause. 

Do you have a path to unlock it? 
-> If not, brainstorm solutions.

Insights from this exercise will carry into your priorities for the week. 

Combine the above with my Minimum Viable Cadence while teaching your team to operate with an ownership mindset, and you'll find a new level as a leader before summer. 

Free Lightning Lesson

We’re blown away!

More than 800 leaders signed up for our 30-minute free workshop on empowering their employees with high-energy one-on-one meetings.

If you missed it, sign up here before Thursday at 1 p.m. ET, and the recording will be sent directly to you.

If nothing else you can hear why I thought it was necessary to include this:

Thank you for reading. Appreciate you!

Dave