What the job description doesn’t tell you!
A career step to the role of Chair, CEO or any leadership position in an organisation is ‘one giant step’ for any of our mankind, and to be honest most people find the adjustment more difficult than expected. The differences a leadership role brings with it are very marked from being a manager. Hopefully my thoughts on the transition may help…
A Mandate to Lead
You may love the idea that you have autonomy – that finally you are ‘the boss’ but remember you are only as successful as the team who provide you with that success, and without their mandate for you to lead, you are a leader without authority! As John Donne said ‘No man is an island’!
The team’s mandate for you to lead them is as much as you can expect. When you were a manager, how often did you put your arm around your boss, or shake his hand and tell him what a great job he was doing. Your mandate to lead includes an agreement by the team that you have authority over them, which may even include a degree of power over their future work life.
In return for letting you lead, your team will expect real leadership from you – leadership which is genuine, fair, supportive and when required, decisive. Nothing less!
So you have a mandate, and you are the man at the top. What now?
Steps to successful Leadership
1. Find a mentor
2. Surround yourself with support
3. Decide collectively
4. Stay real
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1. Find a mentor
You will need support and help as an individual. We all do. Seek this from outside your own organisation. You will find it easier to engage with a mentor who sits outside your company. They will see things clearly and with a different perspective to share. You do not risk changing the dynamic of the organisation you are in. Do not be afraid to ask questions. A mentor is non-judgemental, and will help you achieve more, even if it is through reassurance and confidence.
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2. Surround yourself with support
Draw your team to you. Empower them to deliver success on your behalf. Nurture, encourage, inspire them. Remember you are supporting your team as much as they support you. That’s the deal, unwritten and unspoken, but it exists! Play your part and they will play theirs
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3. Decide collectively
Empowerment includes letting people make decisions, not just do the groundwork for you to decide on their behalf. They decide – you confirm your approval. You may think that now you are the leader your opinion matters more than ever. Outstanding leaders recognise that their opinion matters even less than before, and engaging the opinions of others is more important.
Your role is to facilitate and not determine, to lead, and encourage not to direct
Sharing how decisions are reached with collective discussion provides a brilliant platform for interdependence and collaborative thinking – the synergy flows.
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4. Stay real
Often a leader feels isolated because they allow themselves to be. Be there for your team. Be accessible.
The Key to Leadership
Relationship management is what outstanding leaders do, all ay every day. Each one of your senior team, your workforce, customers and suppliers need to have a relationship with you they can value and appreciate. Only you can provide this. It will take up a huge amount of your time, but really matters. Leaders who lock themselves in ‘important’ meetings all day will not have the impact and influence upon their organisation that really engages and drives it forwards.
As a consequence, there will be days where you feel you haven’t really ‘done’ or ‘achieved’ much. Remember that the ‘doing’ is now for others, and ‘being’ is what you do. I believe that the leader of an organisation is blessed with the highest position and overall view of the organisation they head up, simply so they can see that their day by day influence has a real value across the whole, even when on any given day it seems less visible.
So don’t be surprised if your role seems to consist of less tangible activities. Your presence, influence, encouragement and support is as real as the goods, deals and sales people make on your behalf.
Some things to avoid!
Watch what you say. Remember at all times the importance of what you say. You will be surprised how much weight can be attached to everything you say, even in jest, and what people `read` into it. So be careful what you say and make sure that you clarify points, and check for an understanding from your audience.
Resisting the Urge. It can be difficult to resist launching into operational activities that are no longer your job. You have to let others work on your behalf, and not try to work through it yourself. Keep telling yourself that you need to retain an overview of the whole organisation, not become involved in one area of it.
Worrying about not being ‘busy’. Never feel you are not achieving anything. Someone needs to think things through! Thinking is a very central focus of any leaders role, and time to ‘think’ is essential. You don’t always have to be ‘doing’ something. Trust me, you will never be sitting and not doing anything. For me the job does not end as I drive home. Driving time is thinking time, waking time, shower time are all thinking times – and so is time in the office! My role as leader is not a burden to me, I just put my mind to work to see what innovation, improvement and progress I can encourage.
Being protective. Don’t fear individuals within your team taking opportunities to progress to becoming leaders in their own right – encourage it! They are not and never will be you, so tht them work to fulfil their own ambitions, and be themselves.
The loneliness of leadership
One emotion you will appreciate is the relative loneliness of leadership. Loneliness, and isolation. No-one in a role above you to provide advice, tell you which decisions to take, or praise you when things go well. Be strong, and hold your nerve. Listen to those around you and determine what for you is good and supportive advice. Build peer relationships and strengthen your network. Use your mentor.
A final word
My advice is simply to jump into the role and learn as you go along – It’s a leap of faith – in yourself and your own abilities, but these abilities were the skills that brought you to this place, so rely upon them. Rely upon your intuition and instinct as well – more than you ever have! Just because you have stepped another rung up the hierarchical ladder does not make you any less capable that you were before! Confidence, not overconfidence, and definitely not under confidence is hugely important.
