You got the promotion and are responsible to supervise a group of people. Now what? You were most likely promoted because you were an expert in your area, were able to grow yourself and accomplished your tasks and goals on time and within budget. But most likely, you did not have a lot of previous leadership experience. Sometimes, no one tells you how to be a leader instead of an individual contributor when you get that promotion. One of the hardest things to learn is that you are no longer responsible for doing the job; you are now responsible for the people who do the job.
I think it starts with reframing your role to “I am a leader of people”. It’s no longer, “I am the (position) at (company)”. Reframing can help you know what to delegate, how to prioritize and what professional skills to expand for success.
How do you start shifting to “I am a leader of people”? Since almost everyone has developed a workout plan, a good place to start thinking of the shift is to think of the workplace as a gym for developing your leadership skills. Just like you make a plan for fitness goals and lay out how to get there, you can do the same for becoming a leader.
Here are 6 steps to get started in the workplace gym:
1. Measure where you are today - Too many times in my career, I started setting goals before understanding how those goals tied into my life purpose; or worse, accepted a position without asking whether it was right for me. I recommend setting your personal goals like you would for a company; top-down. Consider your larger purpose in the world, what you want to accomplish in this job or over the long term and then list out key skills you believe will help you and your team be successful. Then measure or self-assess your abilities against those key skills. Soliciting feedback can also be helpful to accurately self-assess your leadership skills.
2. Set goals - Just like you wouldn’t try to run a marathon after being a couch potato for years, make sure your goals are small and doable. You also wouldn’t try to just focus on cardio without also including strength training, so make sure your goals balance out long-term, short-term, etc. Focus on goals related to one skill and one new habit or habit to break that will improve upon the selected skill.
3. Gather your equipment - Set up your system to track your goals, read books to inspire you and gather up your support system (coach, cohort, co-workers and even your employees). Even in retirement, I have a tracking system for my goals. It’s a simple one-pager for daily goals and a word document to track annual or quarterly goals.
4. Get started - Just like you wouldn’t start out exercise 60 minutes a day but instead would start at 10 minutes of working out and slowly working your way up to 60, you should start slowly. Don’t worry about perfection. The key is to get started with something.
5. Check your progress - Just like in the gym, you would remeasure and reassess against your goals. And sometimes, you might fall off the track or lose motivation. Kindly and lovingly check in with your progress and increase motivation through reflecting upon your larger purpose. I highly recommend you schedule time in your calendar to do this. In fact, I used to suggest that my leadership team schedule to stay home one day a month and reflect upon their own goals, team’s goals, the future of their department overall and make adjustments accordingly. Don’t let being busy at work cause you to skip this very important step.
6. Anticipate and assess obstacles - Those who succeed in life, anticipate and plan for how to mitigate those obstacles or bad habits that can prevent completing your goals. Also, look at mistakes and failures as an opportunity to identify other obstacles. Some bad habits can keep you stuck in the old ways. A few examples are below.
Perfectionism Striving to be perfect keeps you focused on details, distracting you from the big-picture orientation that’s expected when you become a leader. I was notorious for this and sadly, tried to hold my team to the same perfectionist standard I held myself. I found once I became a healthy perfectionist, my relationship with my employees improved. A great way to start down the healthy perfectionist path is to create “the to-don’t list”; it’s a list of items you should let go of. These could include things you want to stop doing and tasks you want to drop or hand off. Look at the tasks you are completing and compare it to your job description and clearly identify those that should be on your to do list; leaving the rest to be evaluated for the to-don’t list.
Disease to please The disease to please sometimes leads us to say yes to tasks and jobs you know will eat up your time but bring you little benefit. Sometimes because you want to please people, you say yes when you should say no. Also, delegation of responsibilities to others, leads to growing successful people. If you think about it, delegation is a nurturing behavior because it gives others a chance to flourish and grow, to feel their way and learn from their own mistakes.
For a good resource on these and other habits to consider, I highly recommend How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith.
Summary
Remember, “I am a leader of people” and think about exhibiting behaviors you would like to see in your team, which is growth in skills. The workplace is a gym for your expanding your leadership skills and you can be successful when you follow the 6 steps, which include setting aside the time to regularly review your progress. If you would like to know more about specific leadership skills and how to support your growth in the workplace gym, consider our cohort sessions that starts in January.
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