“I feel maxed out. I can’t breathe.” 

“I hate looking at my phone. It’s always packed full of messages asking for something.”

“I want to be free from the day-to-day.” 

I hear these statements all of the time. Often from successful leaders who have become chained by their success. 

They’ve built a product or service everyone wants. They are trusted and respected. Their financial picture looks great. 

But they don’t have time. No time to work on the business. No time to develop or pursue new opportunities. But more importantly…no time for themselves or their family. 

In this article, I’ll describe the six major components of freedom. If you have these built and in place – even if they aren’t perfect – you’ll experience freedom. 

Six Components of Freedom

ONE: Commitment to Freedom

Am I willing to give authority, responsibility, trust, opportunity, risk and reward away?

To achieve freedom, leaders must answer the question above. This is about mindset. It’s about an emotional commitment to the path of freedom. When the answer starts to become “Yes”, they need to build or find (usually build) the people and systems that will operate the business without your direct oversight. 

TWO: Aggressively Clear Priorities 

How willing am I to say ‘No’ so that I can say ‘Yes’ to what truly matters?

Nearly all of my clients confuse urgency with importance. To achieve freedom, leaders have to: 

• • Tightly dial in on what is most important (and build a framework for quickly identifying it). 
  • Assertively and regularly reorient towards importance (and away from urgency). 
  • Ruthlessly say “No” to opportunities, requests, and demands that aren’t (as) important or valuable. 

This is leadership triage. No one builds freedom for themselves without doing the above. Here’s the secret: It feels more difficult than it actually is. 

THREE: Cultivate Culture

Do we have a clear and shared culture, defined by recognizable values? 

Culture is shaped by the behavior of an organization’s leadership. It is an expression of shared values, priorities, and behaviors. The stronger, clearer, and more aligned your culture is, the less direct management is typically needed. People understand what is expected and what appropriate decisions and behaviors look like. 

Every organization has a culture. Most are built by accident and without intention. If you build and care for yours on purpose, it’ll give you freedom. 

FOUR: Bench Strength & Depth

How dependent is my business on a key employee(s)? 

Freedom requires a strong management and technical team. They need backups too. You need your starting five and your bench. If any business function has a complete dependency on the knowledge, skills, or relationships held by one employee you’ll never be free. At least not for long. All it takes is for that one person to get sick, want to take a vacation, move, or pursue a new opportunity and you’ll be back in the business. 

When staffing options are tight, cross-train your employees. Not only does this provide internal redundancy, but it also helps your team have an informed appreciation for the needs and challenges faced in various roles and departments. 

Dashboard: Do you know what metrics indicate success and health? 

The truth will set you free. In this case, reliable and current data. A car dashboard provides, at a glance, all the information a driver needs to operate the vehicle. Very few drivers perform deep-dive diagnostic tests or would even know how to. But they successfully drive their vehicles for years. 

Your business needs a dashboard as well. Make key information easily and regularly available to you. It will relieve a perceived need to be in the details to see the details. 

Every company’s dashboard is unique to them. Typically, you’ll want to track the top:

• • 3-5 financial indicators 
  • 1-3 indicators of cultural or staffing health 
  • 1-3 indicators of operational health 
  • 1-3 indicators of customer satisfaction or outcomes

Adjust to fit the needs of your organization. For most companies, just defining these indicators – defining what matters most – is an incredibly valuable exercise. It helps clarify what is most important to you and your management team. It also provides the framework for evaluating the performance of your executive team. 

FIVE: Financial Controls

How well-structured and secure are your financial management systems?  

Many leaders are too trusting and informal with their finances. Others are overly controlling and right. Both will prevent you from finding freedom.  

Being too informal usually means you’ll lose track of what is going on and be unable to quickly identify problems. This will eventually create problems that will drag you back into the business (or kill your business). Being too controlling means that financial decisions and activities are too dependent on your involvement. 

 The solution is to build reliable financial controls within your company. If you aren’t sure what this looks like or how to approach it read here. 

SIX: Structures and systems

How well-defined are policies, processes, and procedures? How consistent is performance in your company, especially without your direct oversight? 

People have been playing chess for hundreds of years. It’s possible to meet someone who speaks a completely different language than yourself and play chess with them. Why? Because the chess rules are known, clear, and consistent. 

Structures and systems provide this within your company. Financial controls (above) are one of these. They help people understand the “rules of your game”. Examples of where this is useful include: 

• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)Organizational Charts
• Performance Management Systems
• Communication Systems
• Quality Control Systems
• Financial Management Systems
• Records Management Systems
• Building layout

Conclusion 

Structure (and discipline) build freedom. You don’t have to build it all at once. It doesn’t have to be perfect. But the more of these ingredients you have in place, the more freedom you’ll be able to experience. 

Would you like more freedom in your life? If you read through this and thought, “I’d like that…but I’m not sure I’m able to build it,” contact me.  You aren’t alone. I’ve helped many leaders build freedom and can help you as well. 

Take good care,

Christian

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