Auzenne's Law Of Executive Responsibility

When you become an executive, you've got to change your focus from what is happening inside your organization today to what you want to make happen outside your organization tomorrow.. This is a fundamental shift in thinking that is necessary to lead an organization. It takes significant time for the executive to meet this responsibility. This leaves her less time to oversee and spend time with their managers. This means demanding more of your managers in order to give you time to focus on your responsibilities.

This process creates outstanding - and necessary - development opportunities for managers. They learn how to do more by doing it.. But there are some who can't get where the organization needs them to be, which leads to Auzenne's Law: Don't make me come down there and do your job for you.

In the transition from manager to executive, there is a tension that is created between what you're supposed to be doing versus what you've learned how to do. As a manager hopefully you've learned how to get whatever results are assigned to you, while managing your people to achieve their results and retain them as well. But in learning to manage, most of us focus on our team. We focus on our processes and systems. We focus on the narrow list of results are we are fed from above.

But as an executive, your primary responsibility is not to worry about your team. Your primary responsibility is growing results that have impact outside your part of the organization. That means that what got you here won't get you there. When we become executives, we have to change our focus.

That means less time spent inside your part of the organization (and no time on the trash can fires that happen within it. And that means less time to spend developing your people. Managers have to fend for themselves more, figure things out for themselves more, make decisions without guidance more, take risks more. And if they don't, there are times when you have to remove them from their responsibilities.. Because if your boss has to come down to help you, she's taking her eye off the ball she's supposed to be juggling. Which is Auzenne's Law.