Protecting Your Time and Attention as a New Leader

Moving into a new leadership role is exciting. I stepped into mine with a list of what to work on first: auditing curriculum and assessment practices, developing policies, and being a daily, positive presence in and around the school.

Of course, it wasn’t long before more pressing priorities took over. My to-do list grew, decisions spawned more decisions, and all those blank timetable slots I had from the reduced teaching load vanished. I’d tried to enter my role proactively, but I found myself mostly reacting.

But as time went on, I became more selective with what I turned my attention to. I began to wonder, what if the most important leadership skill isn’t knowing what to do, but knowing what not to do?

Four Mental Models to Guide New Leaders

I’ve captured this idea of focusing my attention on the most impactful places within my school through four mental models. These have helped me hold myself accountable with where I put my attention, and have helped me be a more effective leader without finding myself completely burned out.

1. Circle of competence: Knowing what’s yours to act on. One of the biggest pressures I felt as a new leader came from thinking I had to know everything: the latest reading philosophy, the best way to teach math, or the most recent research on special education. 

When you’re trying to prove yourself as a new leader, it’s hard to admit you don’t have all the answers. But in something as expansive as education, it’s impossible for one person to know it all. That’s where the circle of competence comes in.

Borrowed from the investment world, this mental model suggests acting on what you know and outsourcing that which you don’t. It means it’s not up to the leader to know everything, but to develop a team that does and to draw upon their expertise.

The experts I defer to most are our school psychologists. As a senior leader, I’ve realized I can’t be personally involved in every concerning case I learn about, and that I actually shouldn’t be. Instead, the most useful thing I can do is facilitate the work my staff is best equipped to handle.

2. Via negativa: Taking things away. Schools are additive cultures. There’s often new research, new initiatives, and new protocols, followed by new meetings to roll the new changes out. None of these are bad—education is always evolving. But it does mean that more and more gets added, while little gets taken away.

Via negativa is Latin for “negative way.” It means making improvements by subtracting, rather than adding. Think lengthy paperwork that collects digital dust, or processes that no longer work but continue out of habit.

Using via negativa, a leader can ask, what isn’t having an impact? What am I doing that could go and not be missed? And by removing it, what space does that create?

As part of my new role, I was determined to run efficient meetings. I redesigned the meeting agenda, shading items that would not be discussed in the meeting in red and those that would be in green.

I sent this out a day in advance, so colleagues could read key information alone and be ready to discuss the things that benefit from our collective thinking. The difference was palpable; by taking something away, meetings were lively, were engaging, and consistently ended on time. 

3. Parkinson’s Law: Knowing when to stop. Under Parkinson’s Law, work expands to fill the time available. Give yourself a day to mark a set of books, and it will take all day. But if the students need them back before lunch? They’ll be done before lunch. 

This year I’ve been responsible for at least half of our school’s professional development (PD) sessions on a range of topics. In previous years, I would have spent weeks preparing each one. But the demands of my new role mean I have a few days to prepare, at best.

Despite this reduced time, the quality of the PD hasn’t dropped. If anything, I feel it’s improved, because I’m not redoing work I’ve already done, or doubting my decisions.

And this is where, for me, Parkinson’s Law isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about trusting myself as a leader, believing that I have the knowledge and experience to lead well. Faith in myself protects my time, so I can focus my energy where it counts.

4. Bias for action: Deciding what to act on. Bias for action calls for decisive action over lengthy deliberation. It’s the instinct to do something—anything—rather than nothing. Evolutionarily speaking, it served us well; it’s much better to run away from a lion than it is to ponder which direction to run in. 

But while the job of a leader is indeed to take decisive action, does that mean acting on everything? As my list of jobs grew, I began to wonder, what would happen if I didn’t act on this?

As hard as it was, I resisted the instinct to jump in when colleagues came to me for help. I passed the issue back to them, coaching them to find the answer themselves, which they usually did.

Not only did this stop my to-do list spilling off its page, but it also built capacity and confidence in my team. They’d leave feeling heard, supported, and empowered to take action of their own accord.

“There are few true emergencies in a school” is a mantra that’s helped me pause before reacting. Resisting a bias for action is truly hard. But when you do, it creates time in your day for the things that truly need you, and space for other leaders to grow.

Do fewer things, Better 

Doing less is uncomfortable, especially as a new leader building credibility. I’m still working on mastering these models myself, with moments where I second-guess or spend longer on a task than I’d wanted to. And I still have a long to-do list, though it is steadily shrinking.

But ultimately, doing less is making me better at my job. And our school is better for it, too.