Selling with Data #92 - Senior leaders should spend most of their time on the very few things that matter most.

I believe once you become a second line leader, or a leader of other leaders, the way you spend your time should change.

When you are an individual contributor, sales or technical sales, you should spend at least 60-80% of your time executing core responsibilities. If you are a seller who is prospecting, progressing, and closing business, the majority of time should be focused on in-quarter execution and what is left should be spent on prospecting and out of quarter business. Ideally, only about 10-20% of your time is spent on hygiene like updating CRM, taking training, or doing your expenses.

When you are a first line leader, you should spend 60-80% of your time hiring, coaching, and developing your team. The remainder should be on communicating the forecast, taking training, and doing expenses or other operations.

When you are a second line leader or above, things change. I believe that 80-90% of a team's activities will happen whether you come to work or not. Being busy is one thing, adding value is another. If you spend most of your time cadencing your team and rolling up the forecast to senior management, you might feel busy, but are you actually making a difference and driving real outcomes?

I love this video below. Is the person making the train move or just feeling good about what they think they contributed?

Second line leaders and above should  spend a majority of their time on the 10% their team isn't doing at all or well. Great leaders trust their teams to do the work. Of course, there is value in occasionally actively engaging with the team, though the real value is in learning, observing, and mentoring to help with go-to-market (GTM) design and key engagements – not to hover permanently. The opportunity cost for the broader team's operations is too high.

A great leader will prioritize where they can make the biggest impact, which means stopping activities that, while important to the team, should not take up the majority of the leader’s time.

Here are higher yield activities that they should do instead:

Providing Strategic Clarity. Often teams get caught up in “what” and “how” — leaders should relentlessly reinforce the “why.” Do you have one or two slides that demonstrate the strategy and priorities that doesn't change for at least 12 months? Here is the real test - if someone asked your direct reports what are your strategic priorities, could they answer? If not, you aren't providing consistent strategic clarity and priorities.

Organizational Design. Are teams set up to win? Do you have the right roles? Do you have the right people in the right roles? There is a difference between being in the business (execution) and being on the business (strategy). Organizational design takes a multi-year perspective, deep thought, and debate about what needs to be improved and what may break.

Removing Roadblocks. Your team will escalate issues when you ask for help and respond quickly. Your job as a leader isn't to solve every issue, but to make sure roadblocks are removed. Every Friday, I look at the critical roadblocks in the CRM system and reach out to sellers or technical sellers to make sure that it hasn't been more than a few days that the issue is open. Most times the problem is fixed and someone else fixed it. My job isn't to fix things, it’s to make sure things are not getting stuck.

Cross-Functional Influence. Great leaders influence and operate beyond their team. Are you collaborating across other functions, like marketing, product, or finance? Do you only focus on what is good for sales or do you understand how sales fits with broader company priorities and look for innovative, win-win solutions?

Scaling What Works. When you see across a broader playing field, you have a unique point of view on what is working and what is not. Great leaders identify quickly what is working in one area and replicate it everywhere. The value a leader has is not that they are better than anyone else, but that they have a responsibility to codify and scale best practices.

Innovating - Leaders research and define what’s next – like new markets, new segments, evolving the go-to-market model, new tools or skills the team will need in 12–18 months.

As a leader, your greatest value isn’t in doing the work. It is in ensuring the right work is done by the right people in the right way. Don’t confuse activity with impact. Focus on the few things only you can do and trust your team to do the rest.

What areas did I miss? Leave a comment if you have an example of someone who does this well or tips that could help others.

Good selling.