The way I found that works for me is I theme my days. On Monday, at both companies, I focus on management and running the company… Tuesday is focused on product. Wednesday is focused on marketing and communications and growth. Thursday is focused on developers and partnerships. Friday is focused on the company and the culture and recruiting. Saturday I take off, I hike. Sunday is reflection, feedback, strategy, and getting ready for the week.
No one wants a boss, to be a boss, to work under a boss. The people you like working with are the people you respect as individuals.
It's tough to be good at something you're not interested in. It's nearly impossible to be great at something you're not obsessed with.
As mentioned earlier, all organisations, even the best of them, are absolutely filled with problems. I’ve worked with thousands. Even the organisations I admire most struggle to some degree. And the interesting thing is that most of the problems are about the same. Certainly, there are unique personalities and circumstances connected to the problems. But when it comes right down to it, at the core, most problems have common roots.
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
What you will get wrong is that you will not pay enough attention to your users.
You will make up some idea in your own head that you will call your "vision", and you will spend a lot of time thinking about your vision. In a cafe. By yourself. And build some elaborate thing without going and talking to users, because that's doing sales, which is a pain in the ass, and they might say no.
You will not ship fast enough because you're embarrassed to ship something unfinished, and you don't want to face the likely feedback that you will get from shipping. You will shrink from contact with the real world, contact with your users. That's the mistake you will make.
In such case you'll find yourself spending most of your time fighting to not become a complete bureaucrat, and eventually using only the minority (if any) of your time doing actual work.
However there's plenty of people that's there to "strategize", to "synergize", they're on online calls all day long, it's all career path and promotions and (hopefully) golden parachutes for them, so they'll call it exactly the opposite of "dull". What you call "dull" is actually their goal.
Left unchecked organizations default to bureaucracy. People default to distraction.
It doesn't take long for 3 priorities to become 10. It doesn't take long for 2 people in a meeting to become 8. It doesn't take long to move from people making decisions to committees.
The most productive organizations and people spend a lot of energy fighting what feels good in pursuit of what gets results.
One toxic employee wipes out the gains for more than two superstars. In fact, a superstar, defined as the top 1% of workers in terms of productivity, adds about $5,000 per year to the company’s profit, while a toxic worker costs about $12,000 per year.
The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.