The CEO Work Portfolio: How to Regain Agency and Autonomy of Your Life and Work

As a CEO, how you spend your time and with whom you spend your time should be driven by the choices you make. If you feel like your calendar is managing you and you have no control over your time, you have given up your agency and autonomy.

To regain control of your time and, ultimately, your life and work, you first need to get clear about your purpose, values, and choices. Your purpose, values, and choice serve as the platform for how you spend your time and with whom you choose to spend your time. As you begin to intentionally allocate your time from this platform, those around you will begin to recognize and respect the choices you make – the message that these choices send. 

In their seminal Harvard Business Review article on how CEOs manage time, Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria, describe the importance of time allocation: “The way CEOs allocate their time and their presence—where they choose to personally participate—is crucial, not only to their own effectiveness but also to the performance of their companies. Where and how CEOs are involved determines what gets done and signals priorities for others.” Porter and Nohria continue, “A CEO’s schedule (indeed, any leader’s schedule), then, is a manifestation of how the leader leads and sends powerful messages to the rest of the organization.”

This is an excerpt from The CEO Work Portfolio: How to Regain Agency and Autonomy of Your Life and Work.