BOSS Pie (early version)

Below is the early version of my coaching term “Boss Pie”. The takeaway is that you do not need to lead people to be a leader, and everyone can think of their work in the terms of the Boss Pie.

Usually the term “Boss” is applied to the person in charge, but another common meaning is successful. Similarly, the term “Leader” is normally applied to the person who makes decisions, but really it means anyone who directs resources to affect a change or create value. Those definitions work together to show that you do not need people reporting to you to be a leader, and everyone is a Boss.

The resources you direct may not include people. Instead, they could be the systems and processes of your function and the skills, experience, and abilities you bring to your role. Alternatively, you may lead a team of individuals who then lead processes, or you may lead people who lead other people. Regardless, every person’s time and energy can be described in terms of the slices of the Boss Pie.

The Boss Pie categorizes all your activities into four buckets: Executive, Strategic, Coaching, and Management. Which group takes up most of your time is generally a function of your role (and the needs of your organization over time), but everyone does all of them.

• Executive activities - setting the direction. Requires looking up and around, understanding the mission and environment and how the work or the team fits into it, as well as ensuring that all the resources are working in the same (correct) direction

• Strategist/strategic activities - setting the medium- to long-term goals. Requires understanding the priorities of the now and the near, and how they get us closer to the goals and achieving our mission

• Coaching activities - getting the most out of the resources or people under your direct control. This could be training your direct reports to their fullest, or finding ways to the improve the processes, data, and relationships of your role

• Manager/management activities - getting the required tasks done. This is the most basic effort, ensuring progress is made and that the supporting activities (like keeping up with email and filling out your time card or billing notes) are completed timely and accurately

Most people rise into Management after demonstrating expertise in a specific area of the business or technical knowledge, paired with time and opportunity. That’s fine, of course, yet as the saying goes “what got you here won’t get you where you want to go”. Leading people or leading the organization requires skills beyond field expertise, but leadership skills are no different than any others. They can be identified, studied, practiced, and mastered.

Leading your InBox, leading a team, and leading an enterprise all use those same buckets of activities. Identifying which is most important and whether you do those things well is the starting point for improvement and growth. Improving starts with empowerment - giving yourself permission to change. The BOSS Pie framework creates an opportunity to understand that we are all more powerful than we think, and that each of us has the ability to help US achieve OUR Goals.