How much into the future does the work that you are doing now impact?

I recently read an article (unfortunately I don’t remember where and so, don’t have the link) where this question was asked. Leaders of organisations should typically be doing work that impacts a few years into the future. This would include strategic planning for the direction in which the company is headed, putting processes in place, doing things to protect the culture of the company and so on. Of course, there would times when there would be pressing tasks that don’t impact that far out. But, leaders should spend a large amount of time doing things which impact the company way into the future.

If the leaders of a company spend a majority of their time on dealing with day to day issues then there’s something wrong and that needs to be corrected. A team should be put in place that takes care of these things and the leaders must mainly work on process, direction and culture. They should ask  this question time and again to remind themselves of the significance of their role. It is easy to get caught up in the daily grind and flood of emails that usually hit their inboxes on a regular basis. Time should be carved out and put on the calendar to ensure that this does not come in the way of the long term impact their work must have.