How available is available enough?

If you are in some kind of managing or leading position it might feel important to be as available to those you manage or lead as possible. After all, you are working together on a regular basis, you are keen to inspire that team-feeling, and with common efforts, you will develop and grow the business you are working in.

Perhaps you have even allowed this core value of yours to manifest in one of the clear goals you have set for yourself and your work: You will be an available boss.

For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the “Done!” podcast:

But sometimes this man wants to be an island as well

Just like most other people, you also have tasks that demand your full attention and focus for longer stretches of time. If, when working on these tasks, you were to close your door for a while, you would no longer be the available boss you wish to be. So, your door is (literally or figuratively) always open.

Let us say you manage to close the door when the demanding tasks need to be done. The tasks are important and necessary, but in spite of this, you feel bad about isolating yourself and a voice at the back of your mind says that you ”should be available right now since that’s what you promised you would be.”

Clarify the degree of availability

In order to close your door and get time and space to work undisturbed without feeling bad about it, you need to determine how available you really need to be. What level of availability will suffice and be enough?

Do this

If you sometimes need to make yourself unavailable but simultaneously have the ambition to be an available, present, and committed leader, and you are finding it hard to make these seemingly opposite desires coexist, then do this:

Consider what you actually mean by ”available”.
- Does it mean that you need to be reachable a certain number of hours every week?
- Is it that your coworkers should be able to trust that you stop by their desk every morning and that you then have time to address any issues or questions they might have?
- Is it that you always answer emails or other messages from your colleagues within X number of hours since you are almost never in the office?
- Or does it mean something else to you?
Depending on how you define availability, there will be different ways to measure it. Determine a value or measurement — a goal, if you will — that reflects what you believe is available enough. How available do you need to be in order to be sufficiently available? Once this is established, ask yourself the opposite: how unavailable is it OK for you to be?
When you have arrived at how unavailable you can allow yourself to be and still be as available as you believe you should be (meaning, reaching the specific goal you just set), determine a method or way that will allow you to ensure you get the time you need undisturbed. This will enable you to be wholeheartedly present and available when you are supposed to without feeling stressed about not getting that precious time alone when you need to focus.
- Will you close your door, switch your phone to silent mode, and shut down the email for a specific hour or two every day (which your coworkers are fully aware of)?
- Will you ”make your rounds” amongst the coworkers from time to time after which you can sit down to work undisturbed for an hour until something new comes up that someone needs help with?
- Will you turn off the inflow of messages, emails, and phone calls from time to time without feeling bad about it since you know you will not have to answer anything in the next few hours anyway?
- Perhaps you have some other way to make sure you get time alone?

More to your liking so that you have the energy to help others

If you make it clear both to others and yourself how available you will be, it will become possible to be this available and also attend to tasks and problems which do not involve others. You will not be interrupted as often as before yet still be the committed and present leader you wish to be.

What’s your way?

How do you balance being available and unavailable in your role at work? Feel free to email me!

(And, here’s how to remain focused when you need to be available simultaneously.)

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