Being a CEO—or leading a business unit or function—is a substantively different role than all the positions that preceded it. Your job is to lead… rather than just do. You own the culture, strategy and vision… rather than a series of tasks.

Too often, emerging leaders stumble because they have trouble letting go of the ways they did their previous jobs. They want to cross tasks off their To Do list, when their new role is much more complicated.

You may need to spend more time developing the talents of others and less time using the skills that were valuable in your previous roles. If an up-and-coming leader’s new role is to lead all revenue generation across his or her organization, then being the top salesperson is the wrong goal for them to pursue.

For many, this is a challenging transformation. They know how to do, but not to lead. When the pressure is on, they resort to doing tasks themselves instead of clearing obstacles so that others can do their best work.

Another challenge is that inexperienced leaders get pulled into things because their team, direct report or a board member asked them to jump in. To avoid upsetting or disappointing others, they agree without fully considering how this may water down their impact, set the wrong example and sap their own energy and time.

I call this calendar inertia. Once something gets on your calendar, it’s really hard to get it off.

Another trap is doing things that feel good: taking care of short-term, tangible tasks that only have a short-term impact. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, there are also many others who can perform such a task, while almost no one can do what you are supposed to be doing. For example, it would be much more productive to look ahead to identify things that must be done to set up the future. This might mean the next quarter, next year, or five years.

Success requires being laser focused on the places where you can add the most value. Then identify the set of activities to engage in on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis. And that is just the beginning: keeping the discipline is a daily challenge, but one well worth meeting!