Category: Leadership Development

Categories
Leadership Development Professional & Management Professional Development

3 tips for success in your new leadership role

You’ve been promoted – congratulations! It’s your first leadership role, and it is something you have wanted for some time.

Nearly half of all leadership transitions fail

You are beginning to realise that there are things to plan for as well as celebrate. There is a shocking statistic that nearly half of all leadership transitions fail.

Take a look here at what McKinsey Consulting found out in their research last year:

We can see that leadership transitions can be both high risk and potentially very costly for both organisations and employees. It’s worth looking at what ‘good practice’ should include to ensure that your own transition – from that of a manager to a leader – is a success.

Now you have gained that promotion, you may find you have mixed feelings too. You may be remembering that you really enjoyed being an expert, and now you are really not so sure about what is involved with this leadership stuff, or how you will personally benefit from the change.

Leadership skills
New Leadership tips

At STL, we believe that becoming a leader is not about what you know (your expertise), but how you see things (your perception), followed by how you relate (emotional intelligence).

We believe that the first step in becoming a leader is the change in your perspective and perception.

With many different possibilities on how you see your new role, you may have many questions:
• What is different for me and what stays the same?
• What does my manager expect?*
• How do I make the change and get support?
*You may want to look at our top tips for managing upwards.

Leadership Vs Management

Leadership feels different from management. Here are our tips for what you need to do:

1. Focus on direction.
Your success is no longer about your own task or activity. It is not about operational targets or performance as a solo. Now you need to prioritise and communicate purpose, direction and achievement of the team goal.
2. Work with emotion.
Leaders make it OK for team members to talk about what they think and feel. Developing and fine tuning your Emotional Intelligence now is key. You new requirement is to build and deliver results through relationships.
3. Motivate the team.
Without learning to excite, enthuse and motivate your team, delegation is a chore. Synergy and exceeding customer expectation is something you can best achieve with and through your team.

There are many differences about being a leader and differences in the approach and work involved.

You may like to take a look at this short HBR video clip, with an INSEAD professor describing some of her frustrations in her own transition. What resonated with you?

Transitioning to become a leader may not be easy but with support, it is possible.

Remember our top three tips

Remember our top three tips of focusing on direction, working with emotion and motivating the team. This will be a good foundation for your success.

PS. If you want more to read, here are some more tips for leading well

Categories
Leadership Development Professional & Management Professional Development Soft Skills

Maximise your Strengths at Work

Is there a problem here?

Logically, everyone knows it makes sense to use our strengths at work, yet not all of us do. Research from strength expert Marcus Buckingham shows that only 12% of professionals use their strengths consistently in the workplace. This can have a huge negative impact on business performance.

Superman has great strength
Use your strengths at work

What does it mean to you?

From working with hundreds of managers and professionals we know that if we ask the question “What are strengths?” most reply:

  • Things I am good at
  • Things I enjoy
  • Things which give me satisfaction
  • Things which motivate me
  • Things that other people ask me to do

In contrast, if we ask you about your weaknesses, you say:

  • Things I put off or delay
  • Things I don’t like to do
  • Things which take my energy away

Perhaps from this you can see it doesn’t make much sense to stay in a role which won’t allow you to perform or enjoy your work. We need to feel a sense of satisfaction and to be motivated to carry out tasks that are useful to other people.

Yet many of us still think we progress our career by “fixing our weaknesses” and attending to “our areas of development”.

What’s the alternative?

Strengths offer a better approach. Don’t just be content with average. We want excellence, so we want to use our strengths and just attend to our weaknesses.

How can you do this?

Here are some tried and tested tips based on Positive Psychology research and principles:

1) Work out what energises you. Spend five minutes at the end of every day asking yourself these questions:

  • What satisfied me the most today?
  • Where did I exceed my own expectations on my contribution today?
  • Where was my performance at its best?

2) Ask for feedback from your colleagues and manager:

  • When do you see me most energised?
  • Which things do I rush to do, rather than put off or delay?
  • Where am I a fast learner in my current role?

3) Plan how to use your strengths tomorrow:

  • Consider what is in your diary and schedule
  • Think again about how you could make these activities more motivating to you
  • Ask for your manager’s support in making this happen.

The business case for strengths

Still not convinced?

If you need more evidence, take a look at the link between strengths and business performance:

Marcus Buckingham presents the Business Case for Strengths

[If you interact with the embedded video above and your browser is set to allow cookies, you agree for this 3rd party service to create and store local 3rd party cookies on your device.]

Your next step

The strengths approach is not only about doing the things you like, it’s about having the focus to perform at your best. It is also about having a work-round, a plan or a colleague to support any weakness. We live in the real world here. No-one is good at everything and this is where being part of a team can help.

In summary, when your manager asks you to do something new, try to take a deep breath, allow yourself a pause and ask yourself this question:

“How can I do this in a way that strengthens me?”

Using this question with your team is also a great way to strengthen your leadership style. The bottom line? Using your strengths can accelerate your career and deliver personal growth, so why not start today?