Chapter 4: Moving into a Leadership Role


Overview

When top performers are promoted into managerial roles and become responsible for other people for the first time, they experience two transitions simultaneously. Not only do they have to make the shift from individual contributor to manager but they must segue from follower (or individual contributor) to leader.

Like all passages, this one is challenging because new skills and values must be learned and old habits discarded. One danger here, though, is learning only part of what you need to know as a leader. You may acquire the critical managerial competency of delegating, for instance, but fail to develop a leadership vision. Or you may struggle to reconcile the managerial imperative of “getting things done” and the leadership mandate of developing people. In teaching and coaching senior executives, we’ve learned that most new leaders tend to emphasize those aspects of the role predicted by their personality. Detail-oriented people tend to focus on execution; big thinkers gravitate toward vision.

Moving into management is also a tricky passage because jumping from an individual to a team or group perspective requires a huge leap of faith. For the first time in your career, you’re being asked to get work done through others rather than do things yourself. Some people find this shift tremendously disconcerting; it’s what happens to some star athletes who retire to become coaches and can’t understand why their players don’t think and play the way they did. Or it’s similar to the experience of becoming a parent; your whole perspective shifts when you become responsible for someone else who needs your support and guidance.

Let’s examine this passage in more detail and see how two new leaders dealt with it in different ways.




Leadership Passages. The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader
Leadership Passages: The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)
ISBN: 0787974277
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 121

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