Present Tense: Great Leaders Give People All of Their Attention

“Let me finish my sentence, but don’t go away.”

I say it a lot.

A teacher pops into my office while I’m halfway through a complex, multi-step task.

I’m glad they came.

I’m also mid-thought, and constant code-switching often ends in me losing track of tasks.

So I ask them to wait.

That’s a boundary.

What I’m working on is important and so are they.

They can wait their turn, and as soon as I finish, I’ll be right with them.

The tricky part is what comes next.

Your attention tells people whether they matter.

Eye contact.

Body language.

Whether you’re still glancing at a screen.

If I turn around with one eye on my email, I’ve made them wait.

Half-listening feels efficient in the moment.

But it has twice the cost.

First, the person leaves feeling unheard, so the same concern comes back on you next week.

Second, you let a little trust leak out each time.

And the cost follows me home.

I suffer from overanalysis, replaying meetings over and over in my head, even in my sleep.

The conversations I half-heard at work become reruns I watch all night.

Danny’s been writing a lot lately about Selfmentorship.

Play-It-Safe Principals wait for the system to develop them.

Ruckus Makers take ownership of their own growth.

Presence is a skill you build on purpose.

Here are a few practices:

Make the turn visible. Once I’m done, I do one action to symbolize, to myself and to them, that I’m turning my attention. I turn my phone face down. I lock my computer screen so I can’t see the work anymore. Or I turn my entire body to face them.

Park the loop. Mid-task is the hardest place to stop. Jot your next step on a sticky note before you turn, and your brain lets go of it.

Take five before big meetings. Danny’s advice: block five minutes before a big meeting to think about your objective, picture how you want to show up, and decide on your energy level. If it might get volatile, plan how you’ll handle it. My five minutes happen in the bathroom. Sacrosanct. Uninterrupted.

Protect Blue Sky Time. This is what I call white space on the calendar. Make time to think so you show up for people with room to spare.

Bookend your day. I meditate in the morning, right before I leave for work. It’s my purposeful practice of telling myself there’s no rush. I have five minutes to sit. When I get home, I shower and change clothes to wash the day off and change roles.

Leave email at work. I rarely check email from home. Opening that app invites the angry, demanding parent into my personal space, my sanctuary. Then I can’t turn it off in my head. So I skip it. It’ll be there when I get to work. If it were urgent, my boss would be phoning me. Resist the tyranny of the urgent.

A leader who knows their priorities can afford to be present.

Gary Keller’s The ONE Thing boils it down to one question: which single thing makes everything else easier?

Danny introduced me to one of my favorite tools for exactly this reason: the Harada Method, a 9x9 grid created by Japanese coach Takashi Harada.

Your super goal is at the center, with eight pillars around it and concrete supports under each.

One of my eight pillars is Bandwidth Protection.

Seeing it every morning is why my email app stays closed at home.

When you know what matters, you can set the rest down and turn all the way toward the person in front of you.

Grab Danny’s free Harada Method template.

Your interruptions come by radio, in the hallway, and at the cafeteria door.

Usually with no office to step into.

And you often meet people on their hardest day: a student who just got sent out, or a teacher at the end of their rope.

In that moment, your attention tells them whether they’re a problem to process or a person worth your time.

Your presence happens in 90-second windows.

Give each one your all:

Want more on growing yourself on purpose?

Read Danny’s free mini-book, The Art of Selfmentorship.

Next time someone walks into your office mid-email, finish your sentence.

Then give them your entire attention so you can leave work at work.

Your building is full of doorways.

Let them do the remembering for you.

For one week, use every threshold you cross as a cue: a classroom, the conference room, the teachers’ lounge, your own front door.

Then walk through.

At the end of the week, look back.

Which rooms did you walk into ready for the people inside?

And which ones did you walk into still arguing with the parent from your last meeting?

Still bristling from the email you just read?

Still rehearsing the comeback you thought of too late?

Every doorway is a chance to set that down before you step through.

Coaching question: Which doorway is hardest for you to cross clear-headed?