Leveraging Operations in Leadership

Before You Hire: Leadership Shifts That Actually Create Capacity

• Tonya D. Harrison • Episode 51

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This is Part 1 of a two-part series on building capacity without increasing headcount. In this episode, Tonya Harrison breaks down the leadership shifts that help small teams operate with more clarity and ease — before you think about hiring.

If you're feeling stretched thin, overwhelmed by decisions, or unsure why your team can’t keep up, this episode shows you where capacity is really lost and how to rebuild it through stronger leadership systems.

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Okay, so you're leading the small team and the workload keeps growing. The deadlines keep stacking up, the pressure rises, and your first instinct is we need to hire. That's what most of us say. But here's the truth: most leaders don't consider that you probably don't need more people, you need better systems. Hiring into chaos only creates expensive chaos. You really want to gain some clarity before you start hiring. This episode is part one of a two-part series, and today we're focusing squarely on you, the leader, talking about your habits, decision making, and operational rhythms that are probably overloaded. And if they are overloaded, your team will always be overloaded. Team capacity starts with leadership capacity. And leadership capacity is built through systems thinking. We want to start changing the way we think. So before you go out and hire another person, check out this episode. Let's get into it. Welcome to Leveraging Operations and Leadership, the podcast for business leaders who want to build strong teams, strengthen their systems, and lead with more clarity and confidence. I'm your host, Tanya D. Harrison, Leadership and Operations Consultant and the founder of Signal Partners. Around here on this side of the podcast Internet, we believe leadership and operations go hand in hand, and small teams win when both are aligned. All right. So let's talk about this. And I'm right there with you. I have had this experience, so I understand it all too well. When leaders feel stretched thin is rarely because the team can't perform. It usually has less to do with the team and more about the system around the team or lack of systems. Either the systems are non-existent, unclear, or inconsistent. And you might be experiencing one or all of the following: too many decisions coming back to you, constant re-explaining of expectations, priorities shifting without structure, communication that feels scattered and all over the place, daily interruptions, and reactive work. You rarely spend time planning and being proactive. These are not people issues, they're leadership system issues. When the leader's operational rhythm is unstable, the entire team mirrors it. So if you're running around with your head on fire, nine times out of ten, your team is as well. And they're feeling the same level of stress that you're feeling. Start to ask yourself. When we're thinking about systems thinking, you want to ask yourself better questions. What keeps landing on my desk? Why do we keep repeating the same issue? Where is the real bottleneck? Q to music. It's probably you. Is this a task problem or a clarity problem? Or does this require me, or does it require a better process? In order to move into system thinking, you have to be able to ask yourself a bunch of questions. So instead of pushing harder, you want to redesign how work moves. That's the heart of leadership capacity. This is why I always say leadership and operations intersect. So today I said it's a two-part series, and this is part one. I want to focus mainly on you as the leader and talk about things that you could do. And then in the next part, we'll talk more about from the team perspective, things that you could do on that end. From a leadership perspective, there's three levers leaders must pull to create capacity. And is it more than three? Yes. But I have found in working with solopreneurs that are preparing their businesses to onboard teams and leaders that already have a small team. These are the most common levers and they make the greatest impact. The first thing is leader decision reduction. Now, I've talked about this about how we have so many decisions that we have to make on a regular basis. And most leaders carry too many decisions, big and small. Every time a team member says, What do you want me to do? That's a signal of decision overload. Even if a client is asking, What do I do next? That is the signal of a decision overload. Your goal is to intentionally remove decisions from your plate. Intentionally remove decisions from your plate. Here's a couple of ways that you could do this. Define which decisions the team owns. You may find that you're making decisions that are not yours to make, that they should be made by the team. Giving guardrails instead of instructions. So give your team parameters that they can work within to make a decision. And then creating clarity so people don't need to double check everything. And this may look like a process, a workflow, a guide, but give them what they need so that they can make the decisions. So you're gonna identify what decisions the team owns versus which ones you own. Make sure that they have the guardrails and everything that they need to make the decision and then create clarity so that they don't have to be double checking. So they know what success looks like. I have made the right decision. And here are some ways that you can tell that you've made the right decision. Every decision that you eliminate or push down increases your capacity immediately. And it increases your energy. And sidebar, if you right now, because I know I have some people that are solopreneurs, that they don't have a team, when you are going through this process, you want to think about are there things, and we'll talk a little bit more about this later, are there things that you could automate? So you're still deciding, do I need to make the decision? Do is this something that I need to do? Um, but we'll talk a little bit about that later. The second thing that you want to do, right? So that's the first thing. The first lever is decision reduction. Your task for the week is to minimize the number of decisions that you have to make. So you want to push as many of those down to your team as possible. And of course, it has to make sense because we don't believe in dumping around here. We want to make sure that the team has the capacity to do it, they have the skill set to do it, whatever this decision is that you're giving them that they make, that they have the tools to successfully make the decisions that you want them to make. The second lever is the priority discipline. Overwhelm often comes from trying to move too many priorities at once. You've heard the saying, you're doing the most. And that's not always a good thing. And this is why I am really big on planning. Planning helps you to stay focused. You've outlined what those priorities are, what are the things that are important and what it is that you want to work on. So, you know, really with this lever, the goal is to identify the real priorities that drive results and make sure that you're seeing focus on that because it is really easy to find ourselves shifting or creeping into something else. Like we you probably heard of Scope Creep. Well, it's the same thing when it comes to our priorities. Sometimes we get sidetracked with something that should not be a priority. It probably should go in the parking lot section because it's not something that we want to entertain at this time. Making sure that you identify the real priorities that drive results and stop jumping into work that should belong to someone else. If you have a team, then you hired them for a reason. Think about it. Is this something that I should be doing, or is this something that someone else on my team should be doing? Make sure you are assessing that. Another thing you want to do is remove or pause initiatives that don't support the current season. Sometimes we may be working on something and it becomes a habit to work on it, but we're not even headed in that direction, or that's no longer the priority at the moment, but we're still working on those things. Make sure that you are pausing those initiatives. Okay, this is not something, maybe I don't want to completely abandon it, but it's not a priority right now and put it to the side and pick it up when it is the right time to pick it up. The last thing you want to do when we are talking specifically about priority discipline, limit your personal focus to what only you can do. As a leader, there's going to be some things that only you can do. Identify what those things are and make sure that you're staying focused on those things. And then the team can handle the other things. I have leaders that say that they do things because it's just easier for them to do or it's quicker for them to do. But what happens is that now you have put yourself in a box. You're always going to be doing that task because you haven't trained anybody else to do it. Now it is solely your responsibility. Whereas if you take the time to train somebody or write out the process or write out the workflow, whatever it is that you need to do, now that person can take it on. And if it's documented, more than one person could take it on, depending on the skill set that's needed for it. But now it doesn't require you. There's going to be enough things that require your focus and your time. And you want to make sure that you are focusing on those things first in order to keep moving your team, your business in the direction of your goals. So, yeah, leadership is about discipline, right? So, but when your priorities are clear, you're going to be able to make decisions faster, easier, and your team stops chasing shifting targets. They're not all over the place. They know what it is that they need to do, which is going to make them more productive. All right. So that was lever number two. Lever number three is routines that reduce overwhelm. And I think that sometimes we don't take for granted how beneficial routines are. This is where capacity becomes sustainable. Consistent leadership routines, they protect your energy and they keep your team aligned. Everyone knows, especially you, because we're specifically talking about you, but everyone knows what's going on, what's going to happen. It's not something that shifts all over the place. So, as an example, for me, I have a weekly planning session every Monday. And during this session, I'm thinking about what my priorities are for the week, what it is that I have to work on. I also block out CEO time. And this is where I'm strictly looking at my goals and I'm looking at my metrics, and I'm determining: am I on track for the goals and the initiatives that I've put in place, whether it be for the month, the quarter, or the year. Make sure you have these times blocked off on your calendar and they happen the same time every week. Same thing with structured one-on-ones, right? You want to have a structure. I have a framework for how one-on-ones are done, but making sure that the one-on-ones are the same every week or every other week, however often that you meet with your team. If it's every other week, it's the same time every other week. If it's once a month, it's the same time once a month, once a week, whatever that looks like. That way you're clear, they're clear. It's not something that's moving all over the place. It is a rhythm. I also recommend for people with teams to have weekly team syncs. And even if it's only, you know, two people, three people, having that sync up where you're sharing expectations and your expectations are clear, but also where the team is sharing what it is that they're working on. They have an opportunity to ask any questions. The other people have an opportunity to hear what's going on because this is where collaboration happens. This is where the magic happens. They hear what's going on. You would be surprised at how many people have ideas for how to make things better. Now you are collaborating as a team. Now you're making things better, faster, and they are more cohesive. I also recommend, and this was in a previous uh episode where I talk about reflection time. And you can do this daily or weekly, and it's not a lot of time. I'm talking about 15 minutes, if you do it weekly, maybe 30 minutes, where you go back and you reflect on your week and you're asking yourself questions. What went well? What didn't go well? What could I have done differently? Just really reflecting because the goal is for us to improve over time a little bit at a time, but it's also to bring awareness to what it is that we have going on, where we are in our journey, you know, and this reflection period really helps us to stay in tune with, like I said, where we're going, what we have going on, and how we can make that better. And then also celebrating wins, making sure that you are keeping track of those as well. So those daily or weekly reflection time periods are extremely beneficial. Think about things that you can put on a rhythm that you can do every single week, the same time every week, every other week, every month, whatever that looks like. That is going to help make your capacity more sustainable. I'm not looking for a room like, oh my goodness, I didn't do my weekly planning. No, it's the same time every week, it's already blocked out on my calendar. Same thing with the one-on-ones. Oh my goodness, I didn't meet with, you know, one of the people on the team. No, it's the same time every week, every other week. So it's already scheduled, it's already blocked, and it's on the calendar. When your leadership rhythm is predictable, your workflow becomes lighter, it becomes easier. And again, consistency creates capacity every single time. So those are the three levers, just to really quickly recap when we're talking about creating capacity for you specifically as a leader. The three levers that you specifically as a leader you want to pull in order to create capacity. The first one is decision reduction, reducing the number of decisions that you have to make. And we are working on that one right out the gate, right? That's a priority. The second one is priority discipline. We are really going to take the time to identify what the real priorities are that drive the results that we're looking for. The third one is routines that reduce overwhelm. To round this out, I want to talk a little bit about how you can get support from AI and automation. Because that's another thing that helps with the leadership capacity. And first of all, AI isn't about replacing your teams. It's not about replacing your team. It's about removing mental load. Oh my God, just reducing some of the manual tasks and giving yourself time back so that you could really do deep work. You can pour into the things that you need to pour into where you're not feeling so stretched. Some of the things that I would just say, and this is even if you are in the beginning stages of AI, there's some really quick tasks that you could lean on it for to kind of help. One of them is summarizing meeting notes or reports, drafting agendas. I recommend that you have agendas for all of your meetings. So drafting agendas is helpful for that. Turning some of your rough notes that you have into clean standard operating procedure drafts. I don't recommend. That you you use it to create your SOP, but it definitely can create those clean drafts where you can put it in there and then you fix it up. Or if you have an assistant, they could do it as well. Extracting action items from emails or or Slack or different tools that you use, that has been extremely helpful for me. And then drafting emails. I don't recommend using it to send emails. That's just not my preference, but it can help with drafting emails. So I'm not starting with a blank page. All I have to do is go in and um make the updates that I want. From an automation support, automation handles some of the repetitive, predictable work that may be cluttering your capacity. So think about things that are recurring. This could be automated onboarding sequences for when you onboard a new team member or a client or a vendor. Also, you could automate like task routing. So work moves without you manually assigning it to them. So every time you go into your project management software, if you put something in a specific category, it automatically gets assigned. That way it's automatically moving through the workflow without you having to do a lot. Or uh one of the things that I use it for is status updates. So based when a status is updated, it triggers a workflow or a change. And then automated storage of documents or notes or templates where you can have it go out there and automatically put things into folders. So kind of think about what are some of the things that you do that you may be able to lean on AI and automation for to again help with capacity. I use AI and automation in my business, and I still have a virtual assistant. What it means is that some of these tasks that I could get done with AI and automation, she doesn't have to do. There's things that she's skilled at doing that I want her to focus on. Whereas the AI and automation, I can have it do some of the things to kind of help me out. Really think about all of the things. Think about the three levers, think about AI and automation. What types of things that you could do to support you? Because altogether, when you bring all of those things together, it's going to be extremely helpful in building capacity. And this is one of the main things that I see that burns leaders out is they're overwhelmed. It's too much going on. Think about how you can build capacity before you hire another person. So once you put some of these things in place, then you may very well still need to hire somebody, but you may need to hire somebody with a different skill set because you've organized a lot of the things. You've automated some things that you were doing that you didn't need to do or your team didn't need to do, which we'll talk more about in part two. So just do a quick leadership capacity audit. Before you assume that you need another hire, ask yourself, what decisions am I holding on to that the team could be making? Which priorities can be simplified or eliminated? If it's an initiative that you're no longer interested in, it could actually be eliminated. Where can I automate recurring tasks? What routines do I need to stabilize my leadership rhythm? And where am I reacting instead of designing how work should move? Okay. So once you go through this leadership audit, you're going to find that there's things that you can do to increase your capacity and go ahead, implement those things. And then we'll move on to looking at the team and seeing what some of the things are that you may be able to do from a team perspective. Just remember capacity is not a staffing strategy, it's a leadership strategy. You still will need to hire at some point. As your business continues to grow, if you are a part of a bigger business, as business overall continues to grow, then you may need to still hire. But what you're looking for in terms of skill set may differ. So part two is coming, and that's where, like I said, we'll dig into operational systems your team needs in order to create capacity because they may be overwhelmed as well. And if you are ready to bridge the gap between planning and execution, I want you to download the gap guide. I have a complementary resource. It's a simple, powerful tool that helps you set priorities, track progress, and execute consistently so you stop reacting and start leading with intention. Go ahead, download the gap guide and start creating capacity the smart way. All right, that is it. So thanks for spending time with me today. If this episode gave you a new perspective or help you think differently about how you lead, I'd love for you to take a moment to leave a review. Also, your feedback helps this show reach more leaders who are trying to build strong teams and run their businesses with more clarity and confidence. So we really appreciate it if you do it. Also, if you know a leader who needs this conversation, share this episode with them. We grow faster when we grow together. Until next time, lead with purpose and operate with excellence.

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Tonya D. Harrison

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