Checking email constantly is making bosses bad at being the boss

Checking email constantly is making bosses bad at being the bossChecking email constantly is making bosses bad at being the bossNo ones saying you have to check your email right now, even if you are the boss.Engaging with the constant minutiae of email isnt only slowing managers down its preventing them from doing their more important work as a leader and the major parts of their job. Instead, many find themselves babysitting their inboxes.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreResearchers from the University of Michigan showed that the high volume of email that managers receive places a heavy load on their mission and prevent them from achieving higher goals. Their findings were published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.Leave it aloneAccording to the research, employees spend 90 minutes each day about seven and a half hours per week recovering from interruptions from email. It s the same with managers, only the stakes are higher.Like most tools, email is useful but it can become disruptive and even damaging if used excessively or inappropriately, study leader professor Russell Johnson said, in a release. When managers are the ones trying to recover from email interruption, they fail to meet their goals, they neglect manager-responsibilities and their subordinates dont have the leadership behavior they need to thrive.For the study, the researchers surveyed 48 managers twice a day for two weeks. Managers reported the frequency of their emails and what they demanded, how often they engaged in leader behavior, and their perceived progress on their main job duties.We found that on days when managers reported high email demands, they report lower perceived work progress as a result, and in turn engage in fewer effective leader behaviors, said Johnson.This, in turn, affects their employees performance, productivity, and work satisfaction.The moral of the story i s that managers need to set aside specific times to check email, Johnson said. This puts the manager in control rather than reacting whenever a new message appears, which wrests control away It takes time and effort for employees to transition between email and work tasks, so minimizing the number of times they have to make that transition is to their benefit.Luckily, there are a slew of productivity techniques that work just as well for managers as they do for employees. We hear the Pomodoro Technique is good.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people