When was the last time you updated your phone’s operating system? Probably recently. Now, let me ask a tougher question: When was the last time you upgraded your personal operating model as a leader?

I read an interesting McKinsey Quarterly article this weekend that compared our leadership approaches to device operating systems. The comparison struck me as brilliantly simple! Just as our devices need regular upgrades to function at peak performance, our leadership models require periodic reviews and refinements. But unlike those persistent and sometimes annoying update notifications on our phones, the signals to upgrade our leadership approach often get drowned out by life and the daily noise of running a business.

The Four Drivers of Your Leadership Operating System

According to McKinsey, a leader’s personal operating model consists of four interconnected drivers that determine overall effectiveness:

1. Priorities – The highest-impact problems you choose to solve and opportunities you pursue
2. Roles – How you divide work between what only you can do and what you delegate
3. Time – How you establish boundaries and rhythms to manage your calendar
4. Energy – How you protect your physical health, relationships, and sense of purpose

While all four drivers matter tremendously, I will focus on the one I’ve found to be the most critical lever for operational excellence: the Roles driver.

The Roles Driver: Your Leadership Multiplier

The Roles driver is similar to a sound mixing board in a recording studio. Just as a skilled audio engineer knows precisely which channels to boost and which to reduce to create the perfect sound, effective leaders know exactly where their personal involvement creates the most value and where others can shine.

Let’s break down the key elements of mastering the Roles driver that can dramatically amplify leadership impact.

Focus on the “Rocks, Not Pebbles”

The most effective leaders I’ve had the pleasure of working with follow what McKinsey calls a “rocks, not pebbles” approach:

• They identify the few high-priority areas where their unique talents create a measurable difference.
• They personally support projects that need their visible involvement to signal the importance of the initiative.
• They understand which aspects require their presence, such as kick-off meetings, steering committee governance, and key decisions. And which do not.

I’ve seen leaders exhaust themselves trying to be everywhere at once, handling both strategic initiatives and routine operations. The result? Everything gets mediocre attention, and nothing gets excellence.

Creating Positive Leverage

The magic of leadership doesn’t come from doing everything yourself. It comes from what I call “positive leverage” – the ability to accomplish exponentially more through others by effectively managing the most strategic roles. This means:

• Identifying which positions will create the most value in your organization.
• Selecting people with the right skills and energy for those positions.
• Engaging in meaningful dialogue about expectations beyond just KPIs.
• Discussing outcomes, critical activities, and potential roadblocks.

A Co-Founder of a Non-Profit organization I work with transformed his Foundation by identifying 10 key roles critical to his transformation and execution strategy. Rather than limiting his conversations to direct reports, he spent an hour with each person in these pivotal positions – even those two layers down – setting clear expectations and building connections. The result is a new network of aligned leaders who clearly understand the organization’s mission and direction.

Building Your Support System: The Chief of Staff Advantage

Even the most talented leader needs backup. While many executives rely solely on executive assistants, I’ve seen extraordinary results when leaders bring on a Chief of Staff to elevate their effectiveness.

A Chief of Staff is far more than an administrative role – they’re an executive Swiss Army knife, ready to tackle challenges and free up time to focus on what truly matters – growing the business. They serve as a strategic partner, operational ally, and execution specialist all rolled into one.

The Chief of Staff is not only a leadership multiplier, handling routine decisions so you can focus on high-level strategy. They help transform your vision into reality by breaking big-picture goals into actionable steps and managing communication between you, your leadership team, and the rest of the organization. They also provide a trusted sounding board for ideas and lead special projects that don’t fit neatly into other executives’ responsibilities.

When done right, bringing on a Chief of Staff might be the single most powerful upgrade to a leader’s personal operating model. Whether full-time for larger organizations or part-time for smaller businesses, this role creates the capacity for leadership to think bigger, move faster, and achieve more sustainable success.

Connecting Roles to Operational Excellence

A clear understanding of roles directly drives a company’s operational excellence. When executives apply their distinctive strengths to high-impact areas while strategically delegating other responsibilities, they create clarity that ripples throughout the organization.

Think about it this way: operational excellence isn’t just about well-designed workflows and business processes. It requires leaders who provide clear direction on what matters most, empower staff at every level, and intelligently allocation of resources and attention.

These leaders teams understand who is responsible for what, decisions flow more efficiently, and their organization can scale without proportional increases in management oversight.

Does Your Personal Operating System Need an Upgrade?

The McKinsey article was my update notifications – a reminder to review and update my personal operating model.

I encourage you to do the same. Reflect on your personal operating model and how it might be enabling or limiting your company’s growth. Which areas truly deserve your full attention? Where might strategic delegation create greater leverage? How might refining your role allocation accelerate your organization’s performance?

Just as your smartphone regularly prompts you to update its operating system, your leadership effectiveness depends on periodically upgrading your personal operating model. This upgrade may just be the catalyst that transforms and grows your business.