Posts Tagged ‘success as a leader’

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.

I don’t know about you but I am continually surprised to find that people want the quick fix when it comes to achieving success.

Maybe it is a result of the need for instant gratification, a belief that you can somehow take some magic potion or unrealistic expectations that drive this.

While you might be able to achieve short term successes by quick fixes, the truth is that it takes long term commitment to achieve sustained success.

On a very practical level, this means willingness to:

1. Build your skills; keep them up to date and relevant.
2. Get the diverse experience that you need to thrive and prosper in these challenging times.
3. Take on new challenges even when you know that there is some risk that they won’t work out well.
4. Make the right moves at the right times.
5. Commit to the long term.

The truth is that even people we recognise as being hugely successful took a long time to get the breakthrough. So start taking the long term view if sustained success matters to you.

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

In the modern day of mobile phones with facilities to access the web, send tweets, watch video and listen to audio to name just a few, it is easy to fall into the trap of expecting instant success or results.

 

Achieving leadership success on the other hand is very much a long term project.  Pick up any books that are written by or are about successful people and you will notice that far from being an instant success, it took years to get the breakthrough and then even more time to capitalise on that initial breakthrough.

 

So what does this mean for anyone who is seeking to be a successful leader?

 

Make a long term commitment

 

A lot is said about the importance of having a long term career plan.  At the same time few ever sit down and make the time to create some sort of long term plan.  It does not need to be anything over elaborate it can be as simple as a statement of intention.  For example, when I worked in accountancy, my intention was to keep testing myself at the next level partly to prove that I could do it but more importantly to get access to new challenges.

 

Invest in yourself

 

Many people talk about the pressures on training budgets right now and in many organisations the level of funding for training might be being cut significantly.  At the same time a lack of funding from the employer is sometimes a convenient excuse for not undertaking any continuing professional development or even getting that qualification you need.  Think about the longer term.  What would a few hundred or even a few thousand pounds or dollars give you in return long term over your entire career?  Start to think of personal investment in your development as an investment rather than a cost.

 

Seek out different options and then act

 

There have never been more opportunities to grow and develop as there are today.  The internet has opened a huge range of possibilities from teleseminars to webinars to podcasts to free reports to name just a few.  You can also put yourself forward for projects, potentially shadow someone more senior or take a secondment.  Essentially find different options to developing so that you can choose a selection which give you the best return for your time.

 

Bottom Line – Achieving leadership success should be viewed as a marathon not a sprint.  So what commitment do you need to make to achieve more success as a leader?

To be a successful leader it is vital that you are aware of your strengths and use them effectively.  While this might appear to be easy, we all have to a greater or lesser extent blind spots that get in the way of success.  So what are 7 common blind spots that can hinder your progress as a leader?

1. Needing to be right
2. Being overly ambitious with goals
3. Being too narrowly focused
4. Expecting too much from others
5. Self rather than organisational interests
6. Looking good at all costs
7. Unable to accept mistakes

If you are to achieve the career and personal success you desire, you need to be alert to your blind spots.  So what blind spots might be getting in the way of your success?