Establishing Priorities

To successfully meet a group task – especially with limited resources, equipment or personnel – you must establish priorities. Establishing priorities helps foster effective and efficient relationships in the workplace, and boosts productivity and worker satisfaction.

If you are a leader, manager or supervisor, you will be called upon to set priorities, or at the very least, monitor priorities already set.  The clarity with which you do this will impact the comfort level of your staff. 

This means establishing your own priorities and differentiating them from the other peoples’ priorities.

Establishing individual priorities and differentiating them clarifies the individual roles and responsibilities within a group and lets everyone see how their individual responsibilities contribute to the success of the group.  This is how leaders build a team.

By doing this, you:

• look at the bigger picture  (what you have to do and what others have to do)
• decrease the chances for miscommunication, which could result from the group not understanding individual tasks are involved (everyone knows what everyone else is doing)
• provide for everyone’s needs to be met in the larger context (look at the individual sets of priorities and provide for them all)
• make sure that the group task is completed so everyone looks and feels good about being successful (a master schedule encompasses all the individual schedules).

If you are clear about your overall vision for the future, then the priorities attached to achieving this vision should follow logically and strategically.  Your staff expects that you will explain clearly what needs to be done and when, as well as the relationship between the priorities and the overall goals.

If priorities are clearly stated and contribute to the overall vision, your staff should be able to follow the line of reasoning even in your absence.  This will make your staff and team feel safe in their positions and roles because they can trust your commitment to helping them succeed. 

Competent, credible leaders know how to build effective and efficient teams.  You are credible when you:

• respect your team’s intelligence and ability by giving them roles with responsibilities and allowing them to complete those responsibilities.
• help your team establish priorities and develop an atmosphere that lets them succeed at the tasks they have been assigned. 

Your staff will trust you when they know you want them to succeed and are prepared to do what it takes to make that happen.

Establishing boundaries and priorities go hand in hand. They both help us manage work and human relationships in the workplace. Together, they go a long way toward establishing productive work relationships based on trust.  Competent, credible leaders understand these principles thoroughly and model these behaviors for their staff.