When you step up into leadership roles – at whatever level – there is something you have to leave behind. For moving up a stage means that some of the hands-on work you did, now becomes the role of someone else and you have to let go.
This frees you up to lead the people in your team in ways that may be more challenging and out of your comfort zone. And that is precisely what leadership is. It’s much more about leveraging the capabilities – current, as well as those as yet unreleased – of your people than it is dealing with the old day job.
This is much more obvious in that first step-up, from individual contributor, where the role is producing stuff, to first line manager, where, frankly, that isn’t your job any more. Of course, you have to deliver results, but your role now is to have a team around you who do that, with you in control of what they do, more than how they do it.
Leadership is about creating great employees who contribute fully in a team. A bunch of people you make the most of through your support, encouragement, coaching and guidance. All those people things that you have to develop as a leader, rather than a metaphorical maker of ‘things’. This is your job. If you fail to see and support this, they will become bored and frustrated. 70% of employees leave their boss, not the organisation.
Of course, you need to have the ability to appreciate the work they do, but don’t be afraid to develop people who are better than you at what they do. No-one likes to be appreciated for their expertise in hands-on more than the people in your team, so everything you do is about maximising their capabilities through realising the potential they have within them.
Your skillset as a leader is very different than that of a contributor, for you must develop people skills. These are about great communication, coaching, feedback, listening, challenging and most of all, appreciating and making your people feel they have the capabilities through praise, development and awareness of each and every one of them, in each of their own ways, for they are all different.
And for you, this takes time to appreciate that you can – indeed must – let go of the old you and become a different employee or boss in your own right. The demands on you have changed and your workload is different. You must let go of the old activities that you were good at and loved to do, so that in many ways you become a newbie yourself, receiving support from your own superiors as you tentatively set foot on this new path of nurturing others.
An acid test for this is where you support others so well that they grow enough to move on to greater things themselves. And if you’ve done it right, they will stay with your organisation, spreading the word of the right way to do things. Enhancing the culture so that it is a place people want to work. A place people want to stay.
There are three winners here. . .
Firstly, your employees gets better at what they do and gain new skills, realising their potential – with your support.Secondly, you get great team members, who do the work they are supposed to do – and often more. And you, as a leader get to lead, rather than carry out tasks you don’t need to.
Finally, the overall winner, of course, is the organisation in which you both work. It has strong, capable leaders and enlightened and more effective employees, pushing that bar of performance ever higher in a culture of growth, development and, overall the enjoyment of working in a place that feels good to be at.
