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What’s the use of being the person in charge if you’re not an effective manager?

Some people may be born to lead, but even if genetics didn’t grant you this ability at birth doesn’t mean you can’t learn the skills to up your effectiveness, argues Peter Drucker in The Effective Executive.

George Ambler summarizes the five habits of effective executives outlined in Drucker’s book to help you grab the reins and steer your company in the right direction.

1. Effective executives know where their time goes

…The first step to becoming effective is to know how we spend our time. We become effective by valuing and managing our time. Time is our scarcest resource, not money, people or ideas, but time. We can choose to spend our time in a manner that gets results or we can waste it away…

…Effective executives carefully and continuously analyse and manage how they spend their time. Time is a scarce resource and unless this resource is effectively managed nothing else can be effectively managed…

2. Effective executives focus on contribution and results

…Effective executives focus on results, not activities and effort. It’s easy to get bogged down with the daily flow of events that we forgot why we are doing what we’re doing. They ask what their contribution and results should be. What can you do to contribute to the organisation and make it more successful? Executives have clarity concerning their contribution and results…

Full story at George Ambler.

Learning to lead.

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