FAST SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

ADVANCED BUSINESS CONEPTS

(THE FOCUSED LEADER)

Submitted To
Ms. Fatima Omer
Submitted By
Salman Rafiq 10-4687
Hamza Shoaib 10-4701



Section: BBA-B Date: 6
th
May, 2014



It is those words everyone says is a good thing something most people would like to be better at. Yet by itself,
something is missing. What are you focused on? When we speak about being focused, we commonly mean
thinking about one thing while filtering out distractions.
The author outlines the three things all leaders need to focus on;
an inward focus - focusing on yourself
a focus on others - focusing on others
an outward focus - focusing on the wider world

He writes Focusing inward and focusing on others helps leaders cultivate emotional intelligence. Focusing
outward can improve their ability to devise strategy, innovate, and manage organizations.
Focusing on Yourself: Emotional intelligence begins with self-awareness, getting in touch with your inner
voice. Leaders who heed their inner voices can draw on more resources to make better decisions and connect
with their authentic selves.

Self-awareness: Hearing your inner voice is a matter of paying careful attention to internal physiological
signals. Gut feelings are sensations that something feels right or wrong but another is critical to leadership:
combining our experiences across time into a coherent view of our authentic selves. To be authentic is to be the
same person to others as you are to yourself. In part that entails paying attention to what others think of you,
particularly people whose opinions you esteem and who will be candid in their feedback. A variety of focus that
is useful here is open awareness, in which we broadly notice whats going on around us without getting caught
up in or swept away by any particular thing. In this mode we dont judge, censor, or tune out; we simply
perceive.
Self-control: Cognitive control is the scientific term for putting ones attention where one wants it and keeping
it there in the face of temptation to wander. Cognitive control enables executives to pursue a goal despite
distractions and setbacks. Good cognitive control can be seen in people who stay calm in a crisis, tame their
own agitation, and recover from a debacle or defeat.
The word attention comes from the Latin attendere, meaning to reach toward. This is a perfect definition of
focus on others, which is the foundation of empathy and of an ability to build social relationshipsthe second
and third pillars of emotional intelligence.

The empathy triad. We talk about empathy most commonly as a single attribute. But a close look at where
leaders are focusing when they exhibit it reveals three distinct kinds, each important for leadership
effectiveness:
cognitive empathythe ability to understand another persons perspective;
emotional empathythe ability to feel what someone else feels;
empathic concernthe ability to sense what another person needs from you.

Building relationships. People who lack social sensitivity are easy to spotat least for other people. They are
the clueless among us. The CFO who is technically competent but bullies some people, freezes out others, and
plays favoritesbut when you point out what he has just done, shifts the blame, gets angry, or thinks that
youre the problemis not trying to be a jerk; hes utterly unaware of his shortcomings.
Focusing on the Wider World
Leaders with a strong outward focus are not only good listeners but also good questioners. They are visionaries
who can sense the far-flung consequences of local decisions and imagine how the choices they make today will
play out in the future. They are open to the surprising ways in which seemingly unrelated data can inform their
central interests. Melinda Gates offered up a cogent example when she remarked on 60 Minutes that her
husband was the kind of person who would read an entire book about fertilizer. Charlie Rose asked, Why
fertilizer? The connection was obvious to Bill Gates, who is constantly looking for technological advances that
can save lives on a massive scale. A few billion people would have to die if we hadnt come up with fertilizer,
he replied.

I think the author is correct and he lays out a critical challenge for all of us. Chances are you are far more
proficient at one of these three focal points than the other two and that the proficiency or habit of focus likely
says much about the kind of leader you are. Yet to become the best leader we can be and to best serve both
our team members and our organization, we must become what I call the triple focused leader.
1. Determine where your focus is most often internal, others or outward. You likely already have a clear
picture of this. If not try:
Asking co-workers for their feedback.
Track your day what activities are you spending the most time on?
Consider your goals what do your goals tell you about this not only what the goals are, but the ones you
are making the most progress on.
2. Determine your blind spot or where you focus least.
3. Identify how building focus in that area will help you, your team and your organization.
4. Devise a plan to put more focus on that blind spot.
Identify three specific actions you will take to focus more in that area.
Get a mentor coach or co-worker to help you work on that focus area and give you feedback.
Goleman likens this triple focus idea to looking through binoculars, where you can focus on different things in
your field of view based on your interest and where you focus the lens.
Think about looking through those binoculars and realize that is what we are all doing every day. Our goal
should be to adjust the focus to see everything in front of us, not just what we naturally want to look at.
Focused leaders can command the full range of their own attention: They are in touch with their inner feelings,
they can control their impulses, they are aware of how others see them, they understand what others need from
them, they can weed out distractions and also allow their minds to roam widely, free of preconceptions.