“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.  Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzu

When I ask business leaders how they’re doing, the standard answer I get is some variation of “I’m really busy.”  And it’s true.  Any leader that’s earning their pay is always going to be busy.  Great leaders never run out of things to do.

But what exactly are all these leaders busy doing?  The reality is that if you ask them – and I have – they sometimes have a really difficult time coming up with an answer.  They know they get to work early and stay late, and they know they aren’t just surfing the internet all day, but they can’t really put their finger on what keeps them moving so quickly for so long.

Unfortunately, a lot of leaders seem to be OK with that.  There seems to be a prevailing attitude that being busy is good enough.  And it isn’t just leaders.  People love to talk about how busy they are, as though that in itself is some kind of accomplishment.

It’s not.  There are too many leaders who are busy doing things that don’t matter.  They don’t want to admit it, but most of what they do could either be done by someone far below them on the organizational chart, or shouldn’t be done at all.  But nobody wants to talk about that.  They just want to talk about how busy they are.

Being busy by itself isn’t something to brag about.  Being busy providing value is.  Our goal as leaders shouldn’t be to brag about how busy we are, or how many hours we work, or how exhausted and stressed we are (stress bragging is an actual thing).  It should be to provide the maximum value we can to our organization and the people we lead.

Think about what you did last week.  How much of it was really valuable?  How much of it was the kind of work that you’re uniquely wired for?  How much of it was the sort of thing that only you can do?

If your answer is “not much”, then you have changes to make.  Make sure that every day, when you come to work, you know what that valuable stuff is you’re going to do, and then be purposeful about doing it.  Don’t settle for just being busy.  Be busy making a difference.