The one thing that I have observed about the best leaders I’ve worked for and with and while they are disciplined and focused they are very discerning to make sure they are not missing key priorities nor have the daily and weekly flexibility to adjust to what’s critical and I don’t mean fire fighting.

What the worst leaders do is get themselves so fully booked that there is no time for issues and challenges that arise or to provide direction on key issues that are being developed for the board and on which the management team need guidance.

As Henry Mintzberg’s studies of CEOs showed – that the days of executives were characterized by brevity, discontinuity and face to face interactions. Something that at the time he found a bit surprising as he felt that he might these top executives engrossed in a planning document for example but actually found that it was not as structured.

At a P&C where I was a VP and Officer with my strategic group coordinating with finance and actuary we got pretty good at chunking these tasks for the executive and board. Our CEO would make himself available for key input times and in a day the team might have had one briefing either by me or the CEO or both of us – then produced some working financials and actuarial models – and we’d come back with the first approximation for the CEO. I was proud at how these busy top managers from across the organization worked so effectively together including their presentation at board meetings. This model would not have worked with an over scheduled CEO as the managers would have been working too long to finalize rather than go with first approximations and refine from there.