Introduction
The leadership dilemma - too much to do in too little time

When I wrote the first edition of this book, the key question I started with was 'Are leaders born or are they made?' This is an age-old question many academics and researchers have struggled with. It's a question that has wasted millions of dollars?-?not to mention the millions of days lost sending sceptical employees to old-school leadership-development programs. CEOs, managing directors, divisional directors, vice-presidents and frontline managers can all repeat the theories that have been crammed down their throats by their HR departments. Many leaders I have worked with shared with me their frustration over the latest complex leadership competency model created to show them how they and their leadership teams are screwing things up?-?regardless of how their business is performing or how challenging the competitive environment is.

When the global pandemic hit the world, leaders had no choice but to change the way their people operated. With lockdowns being used to reduce the impact of COVID-19 many people had to quickly shift to working remotely. This created an entirely new way of working, with kitchen tables becoming the new desk and back-to-back Zoom meetings becoming the new norm. Leaders had to deal with isolation, staff mental health challenges and a massive amount of uncertainty that stretched them beyond typical business practices, and most had to make it up along the way.

Leaders do not want to be perfect; they want to motivate their staff to do the best job possible in the shortest time possible. They're looking for practical approaches or techniques that they can use to improve their performance. They don't have time to attend intensive leadership programs that regurgitate leadership theory from the 1980s or 1990s and don't address the challenges of some people working remotely and some in the office. Much of what has been written about leadership tends to be overly complicated and so confusing that you need a PhD to understand it. Many people?-?particularly university lecturers?-?are good at theory.

Yet when I was working as an instructor at a university, I was amazed at how few of the professors had real-life experiences in what they were teaching. Many of them had never been in the 'real world' because they had spent their time collecting degrees and completing reviews of other researchers' articles.

Leadership has changed. In the past, the pace of life and business was very different from today. Leaders used to have time. They had the luxury of spending their evenings and weekends thinking, and recharging their batteries, knowing that the rest of the business world was also on hold until the next business day. They didn't have competitors leveraging new forms of technology to disrupt traditional markets. They had the security of knowing that they could work face to face with their people in the office. Now they are leading remote teams with their workforce spread out. Leaders are now playing a different game and some of them aren't even aware of it, instead thinking things will return to normal overnight! Gone are the days of five to 10-year strategic plans, predictable operations and long-term employee loyalty. These are being replaced by short-horizon strategies, flexible operations that adapt based on the changing competitive landscape, and fighting to attract and keep the top talent. Some leaders are winning, while others are not.

Over the past 25 years, I have observed and worked with a range of business leaders in the United States, Asia-Pacific and Europe across corporate industries, the government and the military, as well as frontline managers and small-business owners looking for strategies for improving their performance. Some have created incredible cultures and attained amazing results; others have stumbled. I've watched as businesses and governments wasted millions and millions of dollars trying to get their leaders and staff to lift their performance using engagement surveys, statistical analyses, competency metrics and complex models.

I'm constantly looking for leadership approaches that work and can be used in multiple environments and businesses. So what is the secret formula?-?the silver bullet?-?to achieving more as a leader? I don't think there's one simple answer to this question. In fact, I often think this is the wrong question to be asking. We should be asking, 'What are the leaders who are achieving more doing?' and, more, importantly, 'How do they do it?' That is the purpose of this book. My goal is to share with you the strategies and pathways that actual leaders are using to achieve increased results in less time, whether they are in the office or leading remotely.

The leadership dilemma is having too much to do in too little time. This challenge is not new to leaders. What is new is the speed with which they have to accomplish things?-?they need to get many more things done in much less time in an environment that includes more remote workers. They need to 'hack' their approach: to find methods and processes they can use to fast-track their approach to thinking, communicating and delegating.

Leadership hacks: a faster approach for a faster world

The amount of information available nowadays for planning, executing and tracking tasks is mind-boggling. It's difficult to keep up with the speed at which information and business are moving in our technology-driven world. Let's have a look at just some of the changes that have affected businesses, employees and traditional players. As you read through these scenarios, consider the difficulties CEOs face when trying to create and execute a traditional business plan in these fast-paced environments.

The business environment has changed?.

• In 1910, the 10 largest businesses in the world were involved in constructing and selling products large enough for human beings to stand on (cars, airplanes and the like). In 2020, the largest businesses were predominantly associated with the creation and sale of invisible, intangible and handheld products.
• Prior to the pandemic, technology allowed many people to work from home, but few actually did. According to the Productivity Commission, in 2019 around 8 per cent of employees had a formal work-from-home arrangement and worked a median of one day per week from home. This has increased to around 40 per cent of the workforce working remotely, and, during the height of the pandemic, many organisations had 90 per cent of their workforce working from home.
• Hybrid work is inevitable with leaders having to make major changes to accommodate what employees want. The Microsoft 2021 Work Trend Index shows that 73 per cent of employees want flexible remote work options to stay. At the same time, 67 per cent of employees want more in-person work or collaboration post-pandemic!
• Organisations are struggling to keep their people skilled and effective for the future. The 2020 Deloitte Insights Global Human Capital Trends survey shows that 53 per cent of businesses say that between half and all of their workforce will need to change their skills and capabilities in the next three years.

Employee dynamics have shifted?.

• Employees are looking at their next employment options; The Microsoft 2021 World Trend Index shows that 41 per cent of the global workforce is likely to consider leaving their current employer within the next year.
• Employees continue to be disillusioned at work, with 80 per cent of employees worldwide either not engaged or actively disengaged at work according to Gallup's 2021 State of the Global Workforce Report. To keep this in perspective, this trend has continued since Gallup started its engagement surveys in 1997, showing that leaders continue to struggle with how to motivate and retain their workforce.
• Because of employees' desire to have more control over where they work, a 2021 Steelcase Global Report found 87 per cent of leaders agree they will have to offer more choice for employees to work from home or elsewhere.
• In 2013, Forbes magazine published the results of a survey about who wastes the most time at work. It found that 64 per cent of employees visit non-work related websites each day. It also reported that more than 60 per cent of these employees admitted to wasting at least one hour per day on these websites?-?with Facebook contributing to over 50 per cent of this time loss. Even more surprising was the feedback received about the reasons for wasting time, which ranged from not being challenged enough to being unsatisfied or bored at work.
• Younger generation employees continue to struggle, with 60 per cent of those 18-25 saying they are merely surviving or struggling from the pandemic. This follows on from the 2015 Future Leaders Index telling us that the next generation entering the workforce is already showing early signs of burnout, with 82 per cent reporting they suffer from one or more physical health issues when they get busy and 76 per cent reporting one or more mental or emotional health issues when they feel overworked. This is leading to increased amounts of employee stress leave, resulting in millions of dollars in medical support being...