Three Key Steps on Your Path to Leadership Greatness
Congratulations, you just got promoted to the manager role of your team! You are quite excited about the opportunity, the responsibility, the work and of course the salary. But do you really know what you got yourself into?
A big first step in any leader’s career progression is often the most difficult: moving from the technical to the management domain. It’s a tough transition and few people are prepared for it. Most managers that I have worked with (including myself) struggle between technical mastery and management work; a struggle that can go on for years or even decades.
As you start assuming your new “manager” identity, it’s easy to slip back into doing the technical work—especially when you’re not sure what exactly to do as a manager. It’s hard to remove yourself from something that has been your raison d’être for so long! But, for the good of your team and your own career progression, you need to change your habits and ignore your reflexes to do the technical work!
Based on my experience as a technical expert, manager and leadership coach, I’ve assembled three key steps new managers must focus on to ensure a smooth transition from their previous role as a technical expert:
#1. Adapt and Guide. Don’t Always Direct
The first step you must take is to adapt your style to each individual’s skill level, providing guidance, not step-by-step directives. With your new found responsibility, you might be inclined to increase the team’s performance by telling everybody what to do, or how to do based on your proven ways. After all, you’ve been doing this for many years… you know what works. However noble your intentions, consider it from the other perspective: what if a new manager was telling YOU, a seasoned veteran, how to do everything? The junior members of the team might appreciate this style as you are teaching them much needed methods and skills. Unfortunately, ‘other’ technical experts who have also been doing it their way for years may not always appreciate being told what to do and how to do it. Such a directive approach will lead to frustration and animosity. They might even view you as an incompetent leader since you only view your way as the right way.
Understanding each team member’s individual skill set and working within those parameters is vital to your efficiency as a manager and your effectiveness as a leader. Along the way, you may need to coach the individual to consider a different perspective or learn a new skill. This is expected and part of being a good leader. For new managers like you, however, the biggest challenge you will face is remembering the end result—and not the “how” it’s done—is now more valuable to you. It might be hard to see your team struggle, but as their leader, you must leave them the ability to resolve the “how” if they have the capacity to come up with the solution.
#2. Don’t Delay, Manage!
Delaying the transition to a true manager or director in your organization can be the career “kiss of death”. The longer you are labelled a technical manager, the more you will be pigeonholed for technical, non-management roles. Furthermore, when an opportunity does open up at a higher level, because you have focused more on your technical expertise, your lack of key management abilities such as vision, budgeting, conflict resolution, delegation, team building and strategy will be a glaring weakness when compared to other candidates. Your career progression does require you to demonstrate technical prowess; however, it’s those soft, “people” skills that separate the cream from the crop.
#3. Manage Performance Effectively
Managing people who were your peers just a few weeks ago is a challenge for most people. Some new managers will turn into micro-managers and infuriate their ex-teammates. Others will try to ignore poor performance to maintain relationships. This results in lower team productivity and low overall expectations. And as you know, the longer you take to address a behaviour or a problem, the more the team believes that this behaviour or performance level is acceptable. Neither micro-managing nor under managing is good for building a high performance team, or your career path. Finding that right balance to manage your team’s performance is your final step. Getting some coaching and training on this topic can be vital for a smoother transition into management, especially if you are leading your “old” team.
I see new managers struggle with these dynamics all of the time. Don’t forget, these issues are quite common and part of your evolution up the career ladder. As a new manager, your supervisors saw your potential to lead. Your job is to avoid the common mistakes that can delay your progress as a leader. You can transition into your new role with less difficulty if you spend the time and energy acquiring the new skills listed above, and challenging yourself to be the best you can be.
For those of you who are senior executives, it’s easy to forget how difficult this transition can be. Your job is to help smooth the edges and provide some guidance along your new manager’s early leadership path. Until then…
Be amazing!
Denis Levesque: executive coach, trainer + speaker 