Making the Transition from Manager to Leader

One of the best ways to demonstrate these behaviors is to put yourself forward for challenging work or projects. Using the services of a coach or mentor can also prove extremely beneficial in helping you develop your leadership skills.

Changing Functions

Leadership is a different skill to management, concerned more with broad concepts and vision than the day-to-day administration of specific people and processes. Leadership expert Michael D. Watkins writes in the Harvard Business Review that managers frequently struggle to make the transition because they are too attached to their former role. [4]

You likely have an in-depth knowledge of the area of the business which you used to manage and may be tempted to focus your leadership efforts there. However, as a leader you need a more general understanding of the wider organization. In this way, you can make decisions which have an impact beyond your immediate sphere of influence.

Similarly, leaders need to be more focused on broad strategy than managers: deciding what needs to be done, rather than how things are done. They do this by analyzing how an organization’s structure touches on their areas of responsibility, identifying problems and encouraging different teams to work together toward a common goal. Their approach is frequently more diplomatic than a manager’s, as they may require buy-in from employees, customers, and leaders in other roles.

Start as You Mean to Go on

In Right From The Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role, Watkins and leadership advisor Dan Ciampa suggest a number of strategies to overcome the tensions and challenges faced when making the transition from manager to leader:

Secure Early Wins

Leadership is based more on transformation than maintaining existing procedures, so identify the main problems faced by your organization and try to address them. Watkins suggests choosing one key area or process where you expect a quick result. [6] For example, if your organization receives negative feedback about its customer service, you might ask your team to brainstorm ideas to improve this.

By assessing the merit of each idea, and encouraging your team to participate in the discussion, you can quickly implement a new initiative to improve customer feedback. This short-term achievement can then be used as a springboard for wider organizational change and visible results can help build confidence in your abilities.

Build Your Credibility

Early perceptions of you as a leader have a strong impact on the development of your long-term credibility. It is important to cultivate productive working relationships with key influencers. To do this, you could:

• identify key people within your organization and arrange to meet with them on a regular basis
• invite ideas from a wide cross section of employees
• offer regular feedback to your direct reports
• offer to launch joint initiatives to improve collaboration

Seek to Understand

As an emerging leader you will likely face many competing demands on your time and considerable pressure to get up to speed with unfamiliar systems and strategies. It is important, however, not to make quick changes without first seeking to understand why existing practices are in place.

For example, each team in your area of responsibility may choose to use different communication tools, whether that be email, instant messenger or an internal social network. It is possible that identifying one tool for use by everyone would improve communication between teams, but it might also upset existing processes. In this situation, it would be better to find out why each team communicates differently before making changes.

Prepare Emotionally

Effective preparation for a new leadership role involves emotional as well as practical groundwork. Like many leaders, you may find it helpful to use self-assessments, 360-degree feedback and professionally-administered psychometric tests to identify your strengths and weaknesses.

It is also important to manage your stress levels. Make sure you find ways to relax and to balance your work and home life as it can be easy to lose perspective.

Seek Advice

As a new leader, finding the right advice and support can prevent you feeling isolated or overwhelmed. Ciampa and Watkins argue that help is needed from a network of advisors who can offer a mix of technical and political expertise, as well as offering personal support. It is important to choose such advisors carefully, though, and to be mindful of their competence, trustworthiness and potential impact on your reputation.

Possible advisors include your manager, someone you respect from another part of the organization or an industry leader who you may have met at a conference or networking event. It is also a good idea to get an outside perspective from someone who does not work in your industry, like a trusted friend or former colleague.