You never know what you’re going to get. It’s the blessing and the curse of being an executive director. The best laid plans may change when you walk in the door and find out an emerging situation needs your attention, or your staff needs help resolving a crisis. Executive directors have a lot of demands on their time from prospective residents, to current residents, to family members, to staff, to community partners, to corporate headquarters, and beyond. Time management is a critical skill in an environment in which no day is the same. The most successful executive directors are experts at managing their time and workload, while also reaching an optimal level of effectiveness and efficiency.
Here’s what four senior living community executive directors had to say about what helps them stay focused, productive, and engaged at work.
1.) Get Away from Your Desk
The most consistent time management advice from the executive directors may at first seem counterintuitive—get away from your desk. They suggest walking around the building or community as a way to stay in touch with staff, address issues on the spot, and reinforce relationships with residents.
Lennie Boop, CDAL, senior executive director at Brookdale’s Grayson View community, is a big believer in getting out of the office and “walks the building” daily. “That interaction with residents and staff is so important, even though it sets me back in my own work sometimes,” said Boop. “It helps me gain the trust and support of my staff, and that helps me run the building.”
Katherine Taylor, CDAL, executive director at Affinity Living Group’s The Gardens of Rose Hill community, agrees. “I’m a walking and talking kind of manager. I think the people that I see that are successful all do it,” said Taylor. “[Walking around the community] helps me stay on top of things. It takes time, but it creates relationships.”
Consciously or not, these executive directors practice a management technique called “management by walking around,” which was popularized by management consultants and corporate leaders in the 1980s. The technique encourages random “wandering,” with expected benefits to morale, productivity, and quality, since problems can be identified and discussed when and where they occur.
Leaving your office to connect with others in the community has business benefits but getting away from your desk or computer has psychological benefits, too.
Margie Longstreth, CDAL, executive director at Five Star Premier Residences of Hollywood, a Five Star Senior Living community, relies on short breaks to help her manage her stress, and her time. “I find that if I take a quick walk through the community, it helps me restore my energy and clears my head. It also keeps me grounded with the residents and gives me a ‘happy’ jolt. We’re all in this business for the residents, so I try to make sure I stay connected to why I’m doing this in the first place,” said Longstreth. She finds these short, energizing breaks help her to be more productive when she gets back to her desk.
Anne DeMinico, CDAL, executive director of Benchmark’s The Village at Willow Crossings community, has daily team meetings to stay connected with important topics, but also realizes that “stress management strategies are so important. Your whole day can be shot if you allow yourself to get [emotionally] caught up [in an issue].”
2.) Keep Your Priorities Straight
Another common theme among these executive directors includes an ability to stay organized and focused on the most important work when deciding how to spend their time and energy.
Whether they used binders, Post-it® notes, planners, or notebooks, these executive directors find physical tools most helpful in keeping them organized. With a solid organizational system in place, they find it easier to focus on their priorities.
DeMinico sets priorities through a strategic planning process she leads with her team. “We create the plan as a team and decide our goals together. Then it’s my job to keep that goal in focus at our weekly meetings,” said DeMinico. “Having those common goals helps with communication and teamwork—and saves time.”
Boop’s time management strategy is “to stay focused on priorities. I put families, residents, and staff first. After that, I focus on state regulations, then other corporate requirements,” he said. While every day brings new challenges, Boop constantly evaluates what needs to get done against these priorities. He also tries to do the most important work as early in the day as possible.
While Taylor agrees prioritization is one of the most critical time management techniques for an executive director, she emphasized the importance of having a system for “circling back.” “Almost every day you might have to focus on something different, so having a system that you can use to circle back and pick up and find where you left off is important,” said Taylor. When things don’t go as planned, “you have to have a way to quickly get back to where you were.”
3.) Find Your Team’s Strengths—and Delegate
Personal time management is important, but even for expert time managers, “some days it takes more [than 8 hours] to get the job done,” said Boop.
If that seems to always be the case, DeMinico recommends overburdened executive directors take a step back and look at where their time is spent. “Are you getting pulled in where someone else could be doing the work? Once you look at where you’re getting mired down, you can address the issues, so your team can take on more of the work and you can get out of the details. To be successful as an executive director, you can’t micromanage. You need a strong team, and you need to build trust,” she said.
“What’s been really important is learning [about] my staff and their strengths. It helps me to know what I can hand off,” said Taylor, who identifies the person best suited to take on a task.
Longstreth also highlights delegation as a key strategy. “Most executive directors that I work with are by nature ‘doers.’ With that in mind, it is sometimes a challenge to remember to delegate,” she said. But if you’ve created the right kind of trusting environment, you may be lucky enough to have a team – like hers – that reminds her, “Hey, I can do that…stop taking on so much!”
If you find it hard to delegate, Longstreth suggests thinking of delegation as a professional development opportunity for your team. “Looking back over my career, some of my greatest mentors delegated work to me that in hindsight, they must have been thrilled to ‘dump’ on someone else. But, when you are moving up, any task that your boss trusts you with and delegates to you, gives you the opportunity to grow,” she said.
“It’s hard to let it go and hold someone else accountable for something,” said Taylor. But these executive directors agree it’s necessary, and worth it…
