Achieving extraordinary success in your leadership role
Congratulations on taking the bold step into a leadership role!
You wanted this role because you love what you do and know you can do a good job as a leader.
However, now...
you are finding that you are going to more meetings.
you’re starting work earlier, finishing later, then working again after the family is in bed.
you’re spending weekends catching up on the work you didn’t get done during the week.
The workload appears overwhelming, with a constant stream of people seeking your guidance, instant messages flooding your inbox, and questions piling up.
It is quicker to provide answers than guide your team in finding their own solutions.
You find yourself trapped in a cycle of reacting, redoing, and responding to a scenario you hadn't anticipated.
Here's something you might not know - newcomers to management are rarely equipped with the skills needed to navigate this transition.
As a result, you find yourself overwhelmed, operating at a level that's too immersed in details, inadvertently pulling your team down to a level lower than their potential.
Levelling up is required urgently.
Levelling up requires a shift in mindset and an enhancement of your behavioural skills, also called "soft" or "people" skills.
These skills include effective communication and listening, dealing with challenging individuals, giving and receiving feedback, building rapport, delegating, and managing conflicts.
As you become more senior, your focus should shift towards delegating tasks that your team can handle and nurturing their capabilities so they can excel and assume more responsibilities.
This is the essence of leadership—transforming from your former technical role into a new persona. You must approach things differently to lead effectively and let go of your previous responsibilities.
Let's pause for a moment …
How are you truly doing in this new role?
Have you embraced this transformation, or are you still caught in the whirlwind of doing everything yourself?
Levelling up means focusing on the tasks appropriate for your role.
This sets you apart as a remarkable manager who brings wisdom to their position and creates a transformative influence on their team.
You make decisions and take necessary actions and risks because you are committed to making a difference within your organisation.
To attain exceptional success in leadership, focus on three critical outcomes:
Engagement: Your personal engagement in effective leadership is gauged by the results you achieve with your team. It necessitates a deep awareness to support each team member in reaching their full potential, leading to increased buy-in from the team.
Predictable Performance: Understanding how, as a leader, you can steer the team from chaotic overwhelm to productive control.Your team performs their tasks as expected, the work is in capable hands, and you don’t need to micromanage every detail.This allows you to concentrate on high-value tasks suitable for your role, making your area stand out and your team outperform others.
Individual Empowerment: Empowering each team member to go above and beyond their role's expectations.This is a significant outcome of your engaged leadership. It requires you to instil a sense of purpose, urgency, and accountability among your staff, enabling them to operate autonomously.Your team members will shine through their exceptional performance.
When you level up, the whole team’s productivity increases, as does team engagement and collaboration, and they can take on extra responsibility.
You will have some time back in your day to start focussing on that higher value, future-focused work you don’t have time for yet, and more time outside of work to relax and rejuvenate.
You start to be noticed for the good work you and your team are doing and your career will start to soar.
This is leading, which requires new skills, so be prepared to embark on a continuous learning journey.