Archive for the ‘How to Successfully Transition to Leadership’ Category

Moving into a leadership role for the first time should be a time of celebration. Yet often, once the initial excitement dies, it can feel like a real struggle.

So what would I highlight as 10 struggles facing new leaders?

Struggle 1: Making The Mindset Shift

Up until the point where you are in a leadership role, you are probably doing a lot. You measure your success on what you get done. As a leader, you are often spending a lot of time looking long-term and not seeing immediate returns from your efforts. This takes a time to adjust to.

Struggle 2: Accepting You Are At The Bottom Rung Of The Ladder

Just before you became a leader you probably were at the top of your peer group. When you move into the leadership role, you are at the bottom rung of the ladder once again.

Struggle 3: Adjusting To Your New Role

One of the things I found when I first stepped into a leadership role was accepting that I could not physically deliver the same volume when I was spending a lot more time in meetings.

Struggle 4: Feeling Under Pressure

New leaders often feel under real pressure to deliver something of significance quickly because you are under scrutiny. If you doubt this, just tale a look at the business section of a good quality newspaper. Keep in mind though that leading is a marathon, not a sprint.

Struggle 5: Feeling Isolated

Being a leader is very often a lonely existence. You might not have someone who you can speak to and discuss concerns with confidentially. This isolation can be tough and is not always something you appreciate before you become a leader.

Struggle 6: Doing What You Always Did

Being a leader is different to anything else you have done in your career so far, so you need to be willing to work differently.

Struggle 7: Making An Impact

The chances are you are joining an already established leadership team. The challenge is to make an impact without upsetting the balance in the existing team.

Struggle 8: Speaking Up

It is easy to think that, because you are the new kid on the block, your point of view is not valid. You have to speak up and offer your point of view with confidence and the realisation that you might get shot down.

Struggle 9: Getting Out Of The Way

You probably have a highly capable deputy who can pretty much do all of the things you can do but perhaps has chosen not to step up to the next level. Your challenge is to acknowledge this, focus on your role and let your deputy do what they do well.

Struggle 10: Continuing To Develop

You will more than likely find that the biggest constraint you face is time, or the lack of it. When this happens, it is easy to put your development on the back burner even though the need to develop is never greater.

The Bottom Line:

Success as a new leader is never guaranteed but changing your behaviour and getting the right support can really make a difference.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people become great leaders and managers. Sign up for his free audio e-course Leadership Success at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk.

If you are a middle manager it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that as you move into senior management you will be doing a very similar role.

In their excellent book The Time Trap, Alec MacKenzie and Pat Nickerson share some interesting data about the stark difference between how senior and middle managers spend their time. While both are involved in some common areas, the analysis is enlightening.

So what exactly did they highlight in different areas?

Planning

When people are in a senior manager role, they are spending somewhere in the region of 30-40% of their time on planning. Middle managers are typically only spending 5-10% of their time on planning. So if you are the type of manager who likes to be doing a lot of things, perhaps senior management is not for you.

Organising

Senior managers it is claimed spend 20-30% of their time on this compared to the 10-20% spent by middle managers. I have to say that this surprised me a little as when you are on the detail of managing it can feel like you are spending a huge amount of time organising.

Measuring, Controlling And Performing Routines

It is in these areas we see the biggest differences. Middle managers can spend up to 85% of their time on this compared to a maximum of about 30% for senior managers.

What all of this means is that if you are looking to climb the career ladder you need to start get experience and exposure to operating with this very different focus. One way of doing this might be to take a short term secondment or perhaps cover the senior role when a post is vacant.

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that being a senior manager is just more of the same with greater responsibility. As the analysis shows there are some vital differences in focus.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements Ltd helps professional people become great leaders. Sign up for his free 6 part audio e-course.

As you are climbing the career ladder towards senior management and leadership roles, it can sometimes feel like you are doing all of the hard work while the more senior people are cruising.

While you will without doubt be working hard, some of the delusions I have noticed people having about leading include:

It’s Easy

• In actual fact it is really tough. You can never really take your foot off the gas. Each time you achieve a milestone there is another one to tackle.

People Respect You More

• What I found is that people only give you respect when you respect them. Status in itself does not mean guaranteed respect.

It Is All Strategic

• The reality is that just like every other role there is a lot of routine. You also find that you are in response mode more often than you expect.

You Don’t Need To Make Sacrifices

• Long days and leadership often go hand in hand. Each hour you have to allocate to work means one hour less to do something else. Sacrifice in my experience goes with the territory.

The Bottom Line: Leadership is not for the faint hearted so make sure you step into a leadership role with your eyes open.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. You can sign up for his free audio e-course at www.goalsandachievements.co.uk

You may well be the best in your professional field. However, as you progress, the key is to successfully make the transition from great professional to great leader.

So what are my best tips?

1. Discover where your real strengths lie. There will be things you are good at and things at which you excel. Get to know what these are.
2. Acknowledge your weaker areas and look to find others who have those skills.
3. Have a plan for development so that you can acquire the skills, qualities and attributes to thrive as a leader.
4. Start building, or at least identifying, those people who you want to have on your team.
5. Find out what it really takes to prosper as a leader from those who have done it.
6. Make a conscious choice to lead rather than taking on the role because it seems like a logical next step.

The truth is that being a great professional does not automatically mean that you will be a great leader.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

From the outside looking in, being a leader can sometimes seem to be all about strategy, the big picture and driving the organisation forward. In my experience, there are often many misconceptions about leading. Here are my top 5:

1. Misconception 1: It’s easy

   Contrary to what people often believe, leading is a huge challenge and is certainly not easy.

2. Misconception 2: You can rely on seniority

   There may have been a time when people in leadership roles could rely on their status to get others to come on board. The truth is this does not work anymore.

3. Misconception 3: Everyone will follow

   Leaders need followers. People only follow you if they believe that you are worth following. Don’t assume everyone will be on board with what you want to achieve.

4. Misconception 4: Leaders are born, not made.

   There is an idea that there is something genetically different which happens at birth to result in people being natural leaders. This is the biggest myth around.

5. Misconception 5: You need to be nasty

   All of the best leaders I ever worked with had one thing in common. They were genuinely nice people and really took an interest in others.

What other misconceptions do you have about leading?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Top Tip 1
• Recognize that it is a big step and going to be challenging.

Top Tip 2

• Don’t make change just for the sake of it.

Top Tip 3

• Take time to do some fact finding before doing anything significant.

Top Tip 4

• Don’t pre-judge anyone before you have given them a chance.

Top Tip 5

• Remember it is a marathon and not a sprint.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

5 Traps For New Leaders

Trap 1:
• Not stepping into the new role.

Trap 2:

• Not hiring the best deputy that you can.

Trap 3:

• Not letting go of the detail.

Trap 4:

• Not investing the time getting to know your colleagues on the leadership team.

Trap 5:

• Expecting it to be an easy transition.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

As a new leader you want to deliver great results. However, there are some traps to avoid if you want to deliver as a leader.

Find out what in this short video. As always, if there are traps of your own that you think others should avoid, please leave a comment.

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