Stepping Into Leadership: 3 Common Challenges
Stepping into a leadership role is often one the most challenging career moves that you have to make. When making the move into leadership people can often:
• Feel isolated and lonely
• De-skilled initially as they were probably a star performer in their previous role
• Uncertain about the way ahead and expectations.
So what 3 common challenges do you need to address to successfully make the move into leadership?
Challenge 1: Making the mental shift
If you are going to succeed as a leader you need to mentally make the shift from manager to leader. By that I mean recognise that you are doing a different role, where the expectations of you and the results that you deliver are different.
Solution: Create the time and space to get crystal clear on your new role, the priorities and then focus your attention on these priorities. Don’t look back, just keep looking forward.
Challenge 2: Letting go
The results that you deliver as a leader will be significantly influenced by how effective you are at leading others. The reason for this is that you can only achieve anything when you have people ready and willing to support you and who are empowered to support you.
Solution: Recognise that you cannot do everything even if you wanted to. Focus on getting people on board and enthusiastic about the results you want to achieve and then empower them to deliver.
Challenge 3: Integrating into an existing leadership team
When you step into a leadership role, you are likely to be joining an already established team or group. As the new guy or gal, it can be challenging to integrate successfully into an established senior management team.
Solution: Take the time to get to know people in the team, listen a lot and offer your insights and views in a constructive way.
Bottom Line – Moving into leadership will always present challenges. So what do you need to start working on to successfully make the transition to leadership?
About the Author Duncan Brodie
Since 2006 I’ve worked with in excess of 8,000 accountants and professionals in workshops, seminars and one to one helping them land their next jobs and become better leaders, presenters and business partners. Before that I spent 25 years in accountancy climbing the career ladder from Payments Clerk to FD. I’m a CIMA Fellow, Certified Professional Coach and Team Coach Facilitator.