The courage to let go, courage to differentiate between levels of importance, and
the courage to throw things away are virtues of successful leaders. They do not
jump on board each passing trend; hence they follow their goals and do not let
themselves become distracted from their course. They consistently make the time
for their “A” priorities, keeping out of the daily hubbub in order to work on them in
a concentrated and disciplined way. If time is left they work on their “B” priorities.
“C” priorities are either delegated or can be left untouched until they just go away.
In many cases it is not necessary to act immediately after all.
Letting go also means not grimly holding onto a matter out of pure perfection-
ism. The Pareto principle shows that 20% of decision-making time is sufficient to
arrive at 80% of the solution. For the remaining 20% of the solution you will need
80% of the time – a calculation that doesn’t pay off. As such, a further leadership
strength lies in the recognizing what amount of effort is really necessary instead of
wasting valuable time and power to make your own work look perfect (see Seiwert
2002, pp. 32–59) (Fig.3.3).
Successful leaders have “SMART” formulations for their objectives. That means
their goals are Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented (or Affirmative), Realistic and
Terminated. This makes objectives concrete and achievable, and allows them to be
Fig. 3.3 Important versus urgent tasks (Source: Seiwert, Lothar J.: Das neue 1x1 des
Zeitmanagement, M€unchen 2002)
150 3 Systemic Leadership or: Designing a World That Others Want to Be Part Of