Procrastination

I am a fairly urgent person, sometimes to a fault. However, there are times when I put things off, hoping that they will somehow go away or that maybe someone else will handle them. We have all worked under leaders, whose motto must have been, “If I put things off long enough people will forget or they will no longer be issues to address”. Unfortunately that usually is not the case. Instead their procrastination or avoidance leads to frustration for those whom they lead or “assumptions”, such as their leaders not caring enough to respond to them in a timely fashion. One of the reasons that I procrastinate is a concern that involvement in a particular issue or with a particular person is that I do not want to get bogged down with details. What I have learned to do along these lines is to require people to merely tell me what time it is (the major points of a project or proposal) rather than telling me how the clock works (the details). Another reason that I delay in taking action is that I am fearful of what I have to encounter, such as addressing a disciplinary issue with a staff person. Over the years, however, I have concluded that putting such action off only makes matters worse when they are addressed. What prompts you to procrastinate in aspects of your leadership of others, and how have your learned to deal with it?