Leader Standard Work – Your 20%

Leader Standard Work: The System That Makes Good Habits Stick in Construction

You can have the best ideas in the world—better huddles, better planning, better walks, better coaching and none of it matters if you don’t have a receptacle for it. The field isn’t short on “what to do.” The field is short on a system that makes sure the right work actually gets done when the pressure hits. That’s what leader standard work is: the system that protects the critical work so you stop being a victim to chaos.

Why Most “Good Ideas” Die on Jobsites: No Receptacle, No Routine

Here’s what happens on most projects: someone suggests a better habit, a better process, or a key weekly task. Everyone nods. Everyone agrees. Then the next urgent issue shows up, and the suggestion disappears. Not because people don’t care. Not because they’re lazy. Because there’s no standard system to hold that new behavior and sustain it. If you want to be more organized, mentor others, and be successful throughout your career, you need a receptacle. You need a standard routine. You need something that survives Monday morning.

What Leader Standard Work Actually Is (And Why Leaders at Every Level Need It)

Leader standard work is exactly what it sounds like: a set of actions, tools, and behaviors that are incorporated into the daily activities of leaders at all levels. It’s the repeatable rhythm that ensures the key 20% of work gets done the work that produces 80% of the results. This applies to field engineers, assistant superintendents, superintendents, PMs, directors, and executives. The role changes, but the need stays the same: if you don’t design your week, your week will be designed by everyone else. And that’s where the warning lands: if you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be part of someone else’s.

Start With the Basics: Role Clarity, Resolutions, Then Standard Work

Before you build leader standard work, go back to the basics in the right order: First: understand your role. What are the outcomes you are responsible for delivering? What are the few essential things that only you can do to make the project successful?

Second: know your resolutions. Not goals. Resolutions. How you will behave while doing the work. You can do your role like a jerk, or you can do your role with respect, collaboration, and discipline. Your resolutions are the method and approach you commit to. Third: build leader standard work. This is where you time-block the key behaviors that make you effective. Fourth: build your personal organization system. Your to-do list, your capture system, and your daily triage habit. When people skip role clarity and resolutions, their leader’s standard work becomes random. When leader standard work is random, it becomes optional. When it becomes optional, it disappears.

The Story: “Write That Down” and the Blank Stare That Revealed the Real Problem

Jason Schroeder tells a simple story from a project site. Certain behaviors needed to happen weekly. His first suggestion was: “Write that down and put it as part of your leader’s standard work.” The response? A blank stare. Not disrespectful. Not laziness. The person didn’t have leader standard work yet. There was nowhere to put the instruction. No standard place to capture it. No day of the week already set up where that habit would live. That moment should be a wake-up call for all of us. If we’re constantly “telling people to do better,” but they don’t have a system to receive and sustain improvements, we’re setting them up to fail. The system failed them; they didn’t fail the system.

What Goes on the Calendar First: Family, Key Meetings, Then Your Standard Work

Leader standard work starts with how you build your calendar. The order matters.

First: family and personal commitments go on the calendar. Date night. Kids’ activities. Therapy. Church responsibilities. Recovery time. If you don’t block these first, the project will take it all.

Second: the project meetings you need to attend not every meeting that exists, but the ones required for your role.

Third: your leader’s standard work time blocks. Plan reading. Schedule time. Walks. Reflection walks. Mentoring. Procurement reviews. Key coordination touchpoints.

Then and only then you allow the chaos of the project to fill in around the system. If chaos is first, it will always win.

This is not about being rigid. It’s about being deliberate. And it’s about protecting people. If the plan requires burnout, the plan is broken. Respect for people is a production strategy.

The 80/20 Focus: Protect the 20% That Drives the Biggest Results

One of the most practical ways to think about leader standard work is the 80/20 rule: protect the 20% of activities that bring 80% of the return on investment.

For a superintendent, that often looks like:

• schedule time to see the future,
• plan reading time every day,
• field walks with purpose,
• mentoring assistant superintendents and field engineers,
• procurement time to prevent supply chain surprises,
• key coordination meetings that stabilize the work.

Leader standard work exists to protect those high-value behaviors so you don’t get swallowed by low-value noise.

Leader Standard Work vs. Chaos: When Randomness Owns Your Day, the Project Is in Trouble

Jason makes a strong point: you should be able to protect at least 50% of your leader’s standard work. If you can’t, the project is in trouble. And the goal is to be above 80% just like a strong planning system targets a high reliability score. If you can’t protect your own standard work, you will be pulled into the 80% of tasks that only deliver 20% of the value. You’ll be busy, but you won’t be effective. You’ll be active, but you won’t be leading.

The Weekly System: Plan the Week, Shape Outlook, Then Protect the Time Blocks

Leader standard work has to be visible. Some people use Outlook. Jason likes an Excel template and then aligns Outlook to match it. The core idea is the same: plan the next week on purpose. Decide what you will do and when you will do it. Then shape the calendar accordingly:

• accept meetings you will attend,
• decline meetings you won’t attend,
• confirm critical meetings,
• send reminders,
• clarify expectations.

The standard you set here matters. A professional calendar is not “tentative on everything.” It’s clear. If you accept it, you show up. If you decline it, you don’t. That level of clarity reduces chaos for everyone around you.

Using Leader Standard Work Like the Last Planner System: Weekly Commitments and Tracking

Jason ties leader standard work to the concept of a weekly work plan, similar in spirit to the Last Planner System. The point is not to copy construction planning exactly. The point is this: you need a weekly plan for yourself that is visual, communicated, and committed to. Then you track what you actually did. If you miss key blocks, you don’t beat yourself up. You study it. You see what interfered. You learn where the waste is. Then you eliminate it. That’s system-first thinking applied to leadership.

The Three Habits That Trigger “Seeing the Future”: Drawings, Schedule, and Field Walks

If you want to be proactive, you need triggers that cause proactive behavior. Jason names three habits that create a “seeing the future” trigger system:

First: be in the drawings every day. When you study the plans, you start sending assignments and questions early: embeds, coordination, access, requirements, interfaces.

Second: be on schedule every day. Ask yourself: do we have manpower, materials, equipment, information, JHAs, planning, and quality processes ready for the upcoming activities? If not, start making-ready now.

Third: do a field walk. The field walk triggers actions: a text to a trade partner, an agenda item, a constraint removal, a coaching moment.

These are not “extra.” These are the job. A master builder must do these things. And if you want flow, these habits must be protected. This is where LeanTakt and Takt become real—because flow requires leaders who can see, plan, and stabilize.

What to Time-Block in Leader Standard Work

• Family and personal commitments first (health, recovery, kids, spouse, faith, appointments)
• Plan reading time daily (drawings, specs, details that drive sequence and quality)
• Schedule time daily (look-ahead, constraints, manpower/material/equipment checks)
• Field walks with purpose (readiness, safety planning, quality hold points, logistics)
• Mentoring and coaching blocks (assistant superintendents, field engineers, key foremen touchpoints)
• Procurement and coordination blocks (submittals, long-lead items, critical interfaces)

Professional Signals of Organization: Small Things That Tell the Truth

Jason makes a blunt observation that matters: how you do one thing is how you do everything. If your voicemail is full, you don’t call people back, your desktop is chaos, your physical space is a disaster, and you never respond to messages people will not trust your reliability. They won’t have confidence that what they hand you will land in the right place. That lack of trust creates more follow-up, more interruptions, and more waste across the team. This isn’t about perfection. It’s about signals. Clean systems reduce friction. Clear follow-up builds trust. Organized leaders stabilize teams.

Track It, Eliminate Waste, and Increase Production Time

Jason shares an eye-opening example: one time he cataloged a project engineer’s week and found only 12 hours of true production time inside a 55-hour week. The rest was meetings, transitions, interruptions, and chaos. The fix isn’t “work more.” The fix is “design better.” When you track your week and see where waste lives, you can increase production time—16 hours, 22 hours, 30 hours by removing friction from the system. Leader standard work becomes your baseline, and improvement becomes possible because you can see what is working and what isn’t.

How to Protect Your Standard Work When Chaos Hits

• Be discerning with random meetings (don’t automatically sacrifice your key blocks)
• Reschedule missed blocks immediately (don’t let them disappear forever)
• Confirm attendance and purpose for meetings (reduce empty, vague calendar time)
• Communicate your availability rhythm to the team (teach people how to use you)
• Track your misses and learn the root causes (eliminate recurring waste)
• Close loops fast (respond, call back, clear voicemail, reduce follow-up churn)

Connect to Mission

This is where the mission matters. Elevate Construction exists to help field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Jason Schroeder teaches that stability is not luck—it’s designed. LeanTakt systems reinforce that idea: flow requires planning, make-ready, and leaders who can protect the work that protects the people.

Leader standard work is a respect-for-people strategy. It reduces chaos. It reduces rework. It reduces overtime pressure. It helps leaders get home on time. It creates clarity for trade partners. It makes the project predictable enough to be safe and successful. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Conclusion

Here’s the challenge: stop hoping you’ll “get to it” and start building the system that makes it inevitable. Identify your role. Identify your resolutions. Build your leader’s standard work. Then triage your daily list and time-block what matters. If you want a single line to anchor this, use the quote Jason gave in the episode: “If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be part of someone else’s.” Build your plan. Share it. Protect it. Improve it every week. Live a remarkable life. Make it a great day. On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions:

How is leader standard work different from a to-do list?
A to-do list is a collection of tasks. Leader standard work is a calendar-based system that protects recurring leadership behaviors (planning, walks, coaching, schedule review) so the project stays stable.

What if my jobsite is too chaotic to time-block anything?
That’s exactly why you need leader standard work. Start by protecting a few critical blocks, drawings, schedule, and a field walk—then expand as the system reduces chaos and interruptions.

How do I decide what should be in my leader’s standard work?
Start with your role: identify the 20% of activities that drive 80% of your results. Then time-block those essentials first, and let lower-value tasks fit around the system.

Should I use Outlook or Excel for leader standard work?
Use whatever makes it visual and sustainable for you. The key is visibility and commitment: plan the week, align your calendar, accept/decline meetings with clarity, and track what you actually completed.

How do I get my team to respect my time blocks?
Share your leader’s standard work and keep it consistent. When people can see your rhythm, they interrupt less, plan better, and only bring critical items to you at the right time.