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Summer in business can bring divided focus.

While businesses are gearing up for the productivity of fall and its push into year-end profitability, schools are out, and employees are taking vacations. And, let’s be honest, there is a pull for even the most dedicated business leaders to reflect and recharge for the months ahead.

While it is tempting for you to power through and push your team toward higher productivity, consider that this natural tendency to reflect, reconnect, re-organize, and recharge may be just what you and your team need to be ready for the rest of the year.

If you are sensing a point of diminishing returns for yourself or your team, it could be time to rebalance.

You can do this by focusing on the primaries.

Primary Role

What is your primary role for this season?

While you will always wear multiple hats simultaneously, what is the one that needs primary attention in this season? Is it business productivity, administration, creativity, personal development, or relationship building?

While it may seem counterintuitive, sometimes the most productive thing you can do is walk away for a short time in order to shore up the other areas of your life.

My late friend, Ed DeCosta, used to talk about this in terms of a bicycle. To function properly, a bicycle needs tires that are balanced. If your wheel of life is flat, you cannot lead well. And if the spokes are broken, your influence will break as well.

So, do yourself a favor, dear leader, and reflect on what role primarily needs your attention in this season.

The need for productivity will return with a vengeance in the fall. What are you doing now to be ready for it?

Primary Focus

This goes to vision and values, which can get lost in the day-to-day tasks and demands. Take a few minutes to review your personal vision and values statements and ask yourself if you are staying focused on those. Do the same for your company vision and values statement.

Slight deviations are common, and this helps you correct course in small increments rather than realizing, too late, that you have lost your way.

Primary Goals

Now look at the big picture goals.

Review your goals for the year and the quarter, both your professional and personal goals. Assess how you are doing – what is working and what is not. And then, realistically, determine what can be accomplished in the remainder of the year.

How can you reach the goals that matter most? What needs to be released to create space for the primary goals?

Primary Objectives

Having goals is great! But how, specifically, will you accomplish them? What are your action steps?

This is where many leaders drop the ball. They may be great at developing ideas and setting goals, but without attention to the details of determining objectives, they often find themselves at the end of the year with unmet goals.

Invest some thought now, while you have time, into the primary objectives you will need to set in order to reach your primary goals.

Bringing it all together.

Focusing on the primaries helps you check all levels of leadership – from roles to goals – to ensure you and your team are on track for success.

• Primary Role – What is your primary role for this season?
• Primary Focus – What are your values? What is your vision? What course corrections are needed?
• Primary Goals – What are the results you want to achieve? Are they realistic for the time you have?
• Primary Objectives – What are the action steps that will lead to those results? What are the milestones for attainment?

For valuable resources on Leadership Strengths and Tools, click here.

Deb Ingino is a highly sought-after executive coach, mentor, consultant, and speaker worldwide. Deb is well versed in business operations and in the importance of asking key questions most business leaders won’t ask themselves. She brings deep experience in leadership development, strategy, high performance team building and effective communication. She has a passion for leading people to discover and maximize their strengths as well as those of fellow team members, while offering advanced strategies to achieve high performance. Deb is the perfect fit if you’re ready to take your leadership and impact to the next level!