I work with many high-achieving women. And I’d put myself in this same category. We want to do well and be successful. We put 110% effort in. We care.

And these are all good things…

But as we all know, you can have too much of a good thing. You know what I mean. When your dedication to your team and your job turns into:

  • Wanting to be a present parent, but spending the whole time you’re at the park with your kiddo texting your boss.
  • Deciding that evenings are just for family, but jumping back on your laptop after dinner to get work done.
  • Putting off that morning workout (again) because you want to get an early start on emails before the day gets crazy.
  • Trying to watch Netflix on the couch with your partner, but your brain is problem-solving that issue from work.

Essentially, your job has taken over your life. You may say that your family, relationships, and health are your top priorities, but if a stranger had to decide your priorities based on how you spend your days, they would likely disagree.

What most of the women I work with want to know is:

Is this just an inevitable part of senior leadership?

So that’s what I’m breaking down in today’s newsletter. Let’s dive in…

How did you get here in the first place?

None of us start out with the goal to have zero work-life balance or time for ourselves. But too often that’s what ends up happening, and it’s a product of 2 things:

       1. Mindset/conditioning.

       2. The increased volume of work as you move up in leadership.

Let’s start with the easy one: As you move up in leadership and your scope of work increases, for many people (but not all), that also means the volume of work increases.

  • You’re invited to more meetings.
  • You have more 1:1s (because you have more direct reports, cross-functional peers you need to meet with, etc.).
  • You have a team to train, develop and respond to when they have questions.
  • You have a boss to keep happy.
  • AND there’s all of the actual work you need to be doing.

That’s a lot. No doubt. But also…

You have a team to hand things off to. You have more resources and knowledge than ever before. So why are you still running around like crazy?

That’s where the mindset and conditioning piece comes in.

Growing up as a female, you were probably told to respect your elders, do as you were told, and be a ‘good girl’. That messaging still lives in you.

When you started your career, you did all of that. You put your hand up for extra work. You made sure everything you handed in was perfect. You kept your head down and outworked your colleagues. And guess what? That worked!

You were praised, promoted, and given more responsibility. You were given a team to manage, and you decided that you were going to be the best leader they ever had. You support them, care about their careers and make sure to answer every question they have as quickly as possible.

But the work is piling on… and although you know you need to delegate more, you actually feel kind of bad making your team do all of your crappy admin work. After all, it’s not really their job either.

When you hand something off, and it comes back riddled with errors, you don’t want to demotivate your team member by ripping it apart, so you give some minimal feedback and fix it yourself before it gets handed in. Besides, that’s faster than having them redo it, and it’s due tonight at 5 pm.

You continue to say yes to new projects, but even when your team is involved, you’re correcting their mistakes or constantly going back and forth. And as a result, your work gets pushed to the evenings.

To be blunt, your desire to please everyone: your team, your colleagues, and your direct reports, is creating a mountain of work for you. And because there’s more work than ever before, you’re drowning, and it just can’t get done during the workday.

As you can start to see… the combination of an increased workload and a ‘good-girl’ mindset becomes a deadly combination.

This is where prioritization, focus, and delegation move from ‘nice to have’ to ‘critical skills.’

I don’t care how many staff and tools you have, you can’t outwork this problem if you don’t make some real changes. Yes, you can (and should) automate some of the work you’re doing, but it’s much more than that.

At this point in your career, you need to get really serious about prioritization, focus, and delegation. You can no longer outwork this problem and stay sane. The way you work needs to change.

And here’s the thing: I know you know how to delegate! And maybe you’re saying to yourself, “But I am delegating, the work just ends up back on my lap.” If that’s the case, you may need to do a reset.

I have to do this every now and then. Most of us do.

Here’s how to get started:

1. The first step is actually diving into what’s getting in your way today, not from a workload perspective, but from a mindset perspective. What stories are you telling yourself about why you need to oversee everything or do it yourself?

2. Next, you want to do a full task audit, every recurring task in your calendar, and take an honest look at what you should be doing vs. handing off. Categorize every task because this is the most important part!

*In ​my workshop on Monday​, we are doing a full task audit, where you’ll also categorize your tasks based on key criteria so you know what to keep, hand off, automate, and drop.

3. Last, you’ll want to start delegating the right tasks to your team in a way that will actually allow you to let go! That means being 100% clear and having a system to ensure they are set up for feedback and success.

(*Note: we are also doing this in the workshop!)

When I think about the top leadership skills, the ability to prioritize and focus is right at the top. And the further up in leadership you go, the more important this becomes.

Do you see the SVPs and C-suite execs in your organization dropping everything to answer a Slack message or doing all of their admin tasks themselves? Of course not!

The sooner you can get ahead of this, the sooner you free yourself up to focus on the more strategic work that gets you recognized and promoted!

That’s why you can’t afford to miss Monday’s workshop!

Monday, we are going to go through all of this together, and you’ll walk away with the next steps you can implement immediately.

In just 90 minutes, you’ll get:

  • Clarity into what’s holding you back from delegating effectively (and why mastering this matters for your promotion).
  • My task audit framework and your personal delegation action plan (created during the workshop).
  • My proven 3-step framework to delegate successfully without micromanaging or sacrificing quality.

The cost of this workshop is just $27! Want in? Grab your spot here.

Until next time friends… ✌️💜

Katy