I recently ran a poll on LinkedIn to learn what people are seeing as their biggest leadership challenges at the moment. The choices were:

·         Keeping my best people

·         Staying positive

·         Motivating my team

·         Knowing where to put my focus

·         Having time with my family

There were 148 responses with 33% identifying their number one challenge as “knowing where to put my focus” and 31% saying that “staying positive” was the biggest challenge for them.

It gets really interesting when you look at some of the demographic breakdowns of the responses:

·         70% of business owners (vs. managers and VP’s) are unsure about where to put their focus

·         68% of people aged 35 and over are concerned with staying positive compared to  32% of those under 35

·         Women leaders are slightly more challenged with keeping positive than men

So what does this small sampling say? Some of us are feeling confused and a bit lost. By not knowing where to focus for the best outcome, we may be having difficulties seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. If we, as leaders, are feeling that way, how does that affect the performance of our teams and our companies?

I have some ideas on what we can do, but before sharing them, I would love to hear your comments and thoughts.