It's not difficult to differentiate a major from a minor in music. Simply find the major chord and flat the third note!

For leaders, the challenge is to determine what is major!

For every organization, major issues may not appear with waving flags and flashing lights. Majors are sneaky like that.

I've heard many times in my career that the boss "majors on minors and doesn't see the majors." Perhaps you have heard or thought about minor-majors along the way.

In our daily walk of influence, can we all agree that not all to-do's are major and most to-do's are probably minor?

Differentiation between major and minor is a learned skill based upon empirical learning. Experience is the greatest teacher.

Effective leaders work diligently to work on the right things. The greatest leader I learned so much from was uncanny in what he didn't do. In my youth, I would have flapped my arms and beat a Husker bass drum over an issue that my mentor didn't even acknowledge. He'd look at me over the top of his round glasses with that "Why are you bothering me with this?" laser focus.

I learned about majors and minors from a leader, not a book or a blog. Leaders do the right things. Managers do things right. Team members do things that managers inspect.

Maxwell and many other writers teach that leaders achieve the pinnacle of their legacy by developing other leaders. We need to be aware of what we teach young leaders by how we teach "what matters most."

Allow me to offer for your consideration a few thoughts on discovering and teaching your personal view of major vs. minor.

Concerning the issue at hand ...

• Is this something that we will be talking about a year from now? Is this thing a preference, opinion or vision? Whatever impacts vision (mission) is probably major.
• Is this a domino? Is it going to impact other dominoes? If I do not respond, will it go away with little to no effect?
• Does this impact revenue? Revenue is major. Expenses tend to be minor because I can impact expenses faster than I can impact revenue. (Forgive my marketing bias.) I can cut expenses now. It's much more difficult to impact revenue now.
• Does this issue hurt others? I need to move quickly to stop pain. Pain is major.
• Is this a pet project? Is my self-worth attached to this project? It's probably minor. Major issues have little to do with me.  

I suppose the quest to differentiate major from minor is a bit quixotic. But certainly, I pray my to-do list is populated with significance.  

Perhaps the greatest differentiation is to be led by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Lead me beside major waters.

Dr. Steve Greene is the publisher and executive vice president of the media group at Charisma Media and executive producer of the Charisma Podcast Network. His book, Love Leads: The Spiritual Connection Between Your Relationships and Productivity, is now available.

Leaders, Dr. Greene wants to help you understand the spiritual connection between relationships and productivity. Read his new blog, here.

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