What do great organizations have in common? Leaders who are able to clearly define the best course of action and make correct, timely decisions toward that course.

The best organizations rarely experience significant drift; that is one of the things that makes them great. But what if you are finding there are several things pulling you away from the course you know you should be on? In my experience you are most likely already in, or will soon experience, a state of overwhelm.

In those times I am reminded of the old book “E-Myth” by Michael Gerber. Although a book aimed at the small business entrepreneur, some of its concepts are applicable to even the largest organizations.

One of the key points of E-Myth is teaching technicians who have launched a business to work on their business, not in their business. Overwhelm often occurs when we become focussed on tasks instead of the big picture. Leaders must make sure that all of the necessary functions within an organization are integrated and accomplishing their part of vision actualization.

The most difficult part of taking the step back from the busyness of tasks is that it will test your leadership to actually lead towards the vision. This will mean re-evaluating your teams roles, their performance, and perhaps even their ability to stay on the team. At the end of the day, however, a team will be more impressed with a leader’s calm approach to vision accomplishment then they will with overwhelmed busyness.