Leap to Leadership. To become a successful leader, it is not enough to have special skills and competencies. You need to change your thinking.
Leap to Leadership
When Penny Hersher first took charge of a company—as CEO of technology firm Simplex Solution—she was confident she could handle any challenge. After all, she had already worked in senior marketing positions, worked in business development, managed departments in her previous job at Synopsys, and was not afraid of challenging tasks. Despite this, quite quickly there was no trace of her confidence left. “I had no idea how to be a leader,” Hersher says. “I constantly felt that I lacked experience and tools. I didn’t know what to do and was waiting for instructions on what to do.” One day one of the directors told her: “You keep waiting for the board of directors to give you the go-ahead. We are always happy to help and recommend something, but you must decide for yourself.” This conversation allowed her to feel confident in her own abilities, and she later took the company to an IPO. As this story shows, the ability to manage a business is determined not by the title of the job, but by the way you think. During my time at the New York Times, I conducted more than 500 in-depth interviews with CEOs and other executives for my column, and several hundred more over the past six years while writing leadership articles for LinkedIn. I have also consulted with hundreds of talented employees who, according to employers, could sooner or later take the reins of management. These conversations helped me understand what it takes to successfully transition to a senior position. To share what I learned, I wrote a book on leadership, The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership. This article is an adaptation of it. In the book, I explore how the thinking of a person who strives to become a leader and successfully cope with new tasks must change. He not only needs to define and communicate his core values to his colleagues, but also learn to make difficult decisions. Set requirements for the results of the team’s work and learn to distribute the load in order to achieve a rhythm that is comfortable for you. Deepen your self-awareness, analyze and evaluate your professional and personal experience – successes and failures, pros and cons. Being a leader means focusing primarily not on yourself, but on the success of the team and being able to simultaneously satisfy several conflicting demands – this, in fact, is the complexity of management work. By following the recommendations I provide below, you can see if you are ready to take on this challenge.
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Be clear about your position
Leap to Leadership
You may have heard the advice more than once to always be prepared with a short and clear “elevator presentation” in case of an unexpected meeting with your boss or potential employer. You’ve probably been advised to prepare succinct answers to questions like: “What are you working on now?” or “What would you like to do?” But when you move to top positions, you need to answer other questions: “What kind of leader are you?” and “What matters most to you?” You need to be predictable and have clear and unchanging values. Then, as Sue Desmond-Hellman, former head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says, others won’t constantly be guessing what to expect from you. When working with aspiring leaders, I ask a few questions to help them develop their personal brand as an executive.
- What three values are most important to you as a leader and employee?
- How have they influenced your career?
- How have they influenced your career?
- Why are they important for success?
- How would you describe your management approach and philosophy to a new employee?
- How would a member of your team describe them?
Take your time and think carefully about your answers. Go beyond the assumptions that every leader has—the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, and a continued focus on the customer—and find your own flavor. You need to create your own unique story, which will take into account the points of view of other people and which can be enriched with personal examples. Pam Fields, the former head of the Stetson hat company, has a clear understanding of what makes up her brand as an executive. “All employees know that they are important and I am on their side,” says Pam. “I’m always proud of my team.” Paula Long, formerly head of the data management firm DataGravity, explains to her employees: “We’re all subcontractors to each other,” emphasizing the need to respect mutual obligations and other people’s time. However you define your personal brand as a manager, be consistent: behave the same way with everyone. The team needs to know that you will not change your approach or betray your values under pressure or for personal gain.
Hone your decision making skills
Leap to Leadership
As you climb the career ladder, you will notice: tasks become more and more difficult, and responsibility for decisions made becomes more and more serious. Sometimes you will have to rely on intuition, because it is quite difficult to understand complicated issues: there is too much to take into account and analyze. You will go through options, but you will not be able to predict whether you are doing the right thing – and you have to come to terms with this. There are many frameworks for decision making, but I find the following recommendations to be the most useful.
Get the most out of your team.
To do this, you must create a free environment where people are not afraid to express their own opinions and debate. Kathleen Finch, Chairman and Chief Content Officer, Warner Bros. Discovery US Networks Group prefers brainstorming sessions. “I gather about 25 people, we discuss projects six months in advance, and everyone comes up with ideas,” she says. — The main rule is to forget about positions. I need more than just marketers to make marketing suggestions.” Always try to understand why a person thinks the way they do and encourage others to do the same.
Listen carefully, but act decisively.
Leap to Leadership
Leaders need to understand that employees want to be heard. They want to not only speak out, but also participate in decision making. This means that a leader must be a good listener. (How to learn this, read the article by Adam Bryant and Kevin Scherer “The end of the information blockade: why managers have no idea about anything . ” “People will follow leaders who listen more than they talk,” says Clark Murphy, former CEO of executive recruiting firm Russell Reynolds. But at the same time, employees expect the manager to act decisively, especially in a crisis. “During the pandemic, I saw that people value a clear line of leadership. Not micromanagement, but the direction that management sets,” says Sandra Pelletier, CEO of Evofem Biosciences. “Employees will reach their goals faster if you guide them toward them.”
Explain your decisions.
It is important not only to act confidently, but also to comment on your steps. People are more likely to follow directions when they understand what they are based on and where they fit into the overall concept. Understanding your thoughts will help them make decisions themselves. “Employees make decisions every day,” said Gregory Bryant, executive vice president and global business director at Analog Devices. “If you don’t give them context, you’ll run into problems.” You need to clearly describe your vision and strategy – and explain how they relate to the daily tasks of employees.“
Leap to Leadership