4 bottlenecks that are choking your leadership

Tom Harper Jan. 10, 2022

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One thing all leaders must do is find and eliminate the bottlenecks in their organizations.

Depending on the number of people on staff or in volunteer roles, the bottleneck, of course, may be you. (But we won't go there.)

To be clear, a bottleneck is a choke point where the flow of work slows. It's a little more than a speed bump or a pile of debris in the road. It's like the organization's blood flow cuts off and muscles start to starve.

Here are four common bottlenecks that wage war against productivity, along with some questions to help you determine if they've snuck into your own organization.

1. Projects – Some projects keep getting delayed, demand more resources, cause conflict or keep changing. Chances are you can name one right now that's been on your list for too many months.

• What would happen if it never got done? Can it be discontinued without jeopardizing the organization?
• Would people cheer if you killed it?

2. Personalities– Some people's personality differences won't go away. They'll do whatever they can to avoid each other or get at each other's throats, which can be a problem if they're on the same team, even just for a short-term project.

• Can you change things up so they don't have to work together?
• Have you had a frank talk with them separately?
• Does one of them need to go?

3. Processes – A process that hasn't been refined or re-thought in a while tends to become an Untouchable. It turns into an obstacle on the path of productivity that people step over or around.

• What processes need review?
• What new processes should replace old ones?

4. Politics – This nasty little bottleneck can stifle an organization's effectiveness. When people constantly jockey for their own benefit, the leader starts to lose control.

• Who on your team is guilty of politicking? (Get their name(s) in your mind as you answer the next question.)
• When was the last time you confronted them about their conduct?

What other bottlenecks plague your workplace? Maybe it's time to ask some tough questions and get the blood flowing again.

Excerpted from Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership, by Tom Harper (DeepWater Books, 2019).

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Tom Harper is publisher of BiblicalLeadership.com and executive chairman of Networld Media Group, a business-to-business publisher and event producer. He has written five books, including Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership (DeepWater Books, 2019) as well as the Christian business fable Through Colored Glasses and its sequel Inner Threat (DeepWater, 2022). Learn More »

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