Leadership Conversations: Challenging High-Potential Managers to Become Great Leaders

Even if this scenario isn't familiar to you, it's incredibly common. Moving into a management role for the first time is a difficult transition, and many people struggle to adapt to the responsibilities of leadership. And veteran managers who are promoted often find it just as hard to handle their new post and the different types of relationships it brings.

But there is a solution. And it lies, this book says, in learning to talk to people in the right way.

Knowing how to hold conversations with colleagues, direct reports, and superiors, understanding when to adopt a leadership mindset over a management mindset, and having the tools and techniques to nurture, support, and inspire those around you are key to success in any organization. And this book will help you master those skills.

Leadership Conversations provides readers with a road map to navigate the complexities of professional relationships. It's a practical guide to forming connections at all levels of an organization, and to understanding how relationships must change and develop as people move up the ladder.

So, if you're newly promoted or trying to land a promotion, this book is definitely for you. Entry-level managers will get a lot from this book, and so will managers of managers, executive leaders, and anyone whose job title begins with "chief."

We'd say "Leadership Conversations" is most relevant to people working in big organizations. But if you're an entrepreneur leading a small team, you'll also find plenty of useful information in this book, particularly if you're hoping your business will grow.

The authors' combined experience working across a range of sectors makes this book accessible and of interest to this broad spectrum of readers. Alan S. Berson is an executive coach, leadership consultant, speaker, and professor. He's worked in leadership, strategic planning, and marketing roles at Fortune-500 companies including Gillette, Bausch & Lomb, and Marriott.

Richard G. Stieglitz is a business consultant and speaker who founded, built, and sold a company that helped government and industry executives lead change. He previously worked as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy, and as an executive in the aerospace and computer industries. He's the author of two other books.

So, keep listening to learn how the right mindset can help you get off to a good start with a new team member, how to coach high-fliers to achieve their potential, and how to get yourself promoted.

The authors identify four types of conversations every leader must master: conversations that build relationships, that develop others, that make decisions, and that take action.

Within these four categories, there are tips on building a culture with transparency and honesty, mentoring, coaching, offering feedback, and celebrating success, fostering innovation, and developing vision. And that's just picking out the highlights.

This book is really comprehensive, and having it in your toolkit will definitely help you avoid the potential pitfalls that follow a promotion at any level. With so much information, there is some repetition, and you might find yourself coming across things you think you've read before, or that would fit better in a different chapter. But, on the whole, the authors have done a good job of structuring their information.

So, let's take a look at what they have to say about management and leadership mindsets, and how to get off on the right foot with a new employee.

Leadership and management mindsets are two sides of the same coin, the authors say. It's not about one or the other – you need to master both. You also need to learn how to shift from one mindset to the other in appropriate ways and at the right time.

Conversations in the management mindset focus on processing information, completing tasks, meeting deadlines and targets, and looking at measureable results and quantitative goals.

In the leadership mindset, conversations focus on building respect and trust, encouraging two-way feedback, creating learning experiences, getting the best out of everyone, growing talent, and creating a vision for the future. Combined, the conversations create alignment among employees, promote innovation, encourage change, and produce top-notch results in the short- and long-term.

As a manager, it's important to get off to a good start with direct reports, and using the right mix of management and leadership talk will help you do this.

The authors illustrate this point with a hypothetical conversation between an executive leader and a manager who's just joined the organization. Here's a similar scenario, using the authors' tips.

The leader welcomes the new manager, makes it clear she's a valuable member of her team, and emphasizes the importance of teamwork to meet the organization's goals. Then, he puts all talk of goals to one side. Instead of discussing management issues like targets, roles, and resources, he discusses the organization's culture. He tells the new hire what makes him tick as a boss, and asks her why she felt drawn to join the team.

This creates a safe space for the manager to talk about what values are important to her, which in turn gives the leader insight into what motivates his employee. The leader goes on to say how good relationships, mutual respect, and an atmosphere of trust are essential to the organization, sending the message that the company's success depends on its people, not just on the results they produce.

You can imagine the kind of relationship that comes from this conversation. The new manager feels excited about the team she's joined and is willing to give her best, while the boss feels confident he's made the right hiring decision. Building this kind of rapport lays a solid foundation, making it easier to have more technical, detailed management conversations further down the line.

Now, you may be thinking this seems obvious, but you'd be surprised how many new relationships get off on the wrong foot. Sometimes leaders are too focused on results and action, or too busy with the day-to-day pressures of the job, and they omit this vital relationship-building stage. And we all know what happens to buildings that don't have sound foundations – in the end, they fall down.

We especially like the way the authors quote directly from a conversation to make their point. This adds color to a book that's quite heavy on theory. In this case, the conversation was a hypothetical one, but the authors draw on their experience to create a realistic scenario. Elsewhere, they use real-life case studies from a range of sectors.

Let's now look at what the authors have to say about "high-potentials" – those individuals who are set to rise quickly through the ranks and outperform their colleagues. As a leader, it's vital to be able to identify these employees and to coach and mentor them. All too often, high-potentials are promoted without being given the necessary leadership tools to do their job – and their potential goes to waste as they flounder in their new role.

But what does a high-potential employee look like? Some of the characteristics the authors mention are obvious, but some are less so.

Typically, high-potentials demonstrate the intelligence, ability, judgment, and emotional intelligence commonly found in the best leaders. They can come across as ambitious and aggressive – or simply passionate – because they know what they want and they're not keen on waiting. Many of them have climbed the corporate ladder at a rapid pace, skipping a few steps. They also tend to be process oriented – they understand workflows, problem solving, and know how to build a team to get a job done.

As the manager of one of these top performers, you'll want to work out whether they have expert potential – that's the ability to do more complex tasks in the same field; growth potential – the ability to lead bigger projects at the same level; or promotion potential – the ability to deliver results at the next level up.

These three categories are useful when it comes to performance reviews and interviews, the authors say, and they provide a simple tool for gaging the potential of existing or incoming employees.

Every time someone is promoted, they need to adopt new ways of working and leave some old ways behind – even if those old ways proved successful in the past. They'll need to acquire new skills, change their priorities, adopt new criteria to measure success, and build different relationships, both inside and outside the organization.

And it's a manager's job to oversee this transition. So here are a few of the authors' tips on how to coach and mentor high potentials – and keep in mind there are many more in the book.

Let's say you manage a top performer called Laura, who's just been promoted to first-line manager reporting to you. Firstly, you'll want to talk with her about your expectations, the challenges she's likely to face, and the new responsibilities she'll have to take on.
These new responsibilities include things like setting tasks for her direct reports, communicating objectives, delegating work, providing feedback, and building relationships up, down, and across the organization.

It's important to encourage her to plan her schedule and tasks carefully. She'll likely want to rush in and get things done, but planning is vital. And make sure you ask enough of her, by giving her some ambitious tasks to take on – it's important not to baby her. Suggest she give a presentation at an imminent meeting, or she prepares a budget for an upcoming project. They will both stretch her skills and remind her she still has a lot to learn.

Feedback is another vital part of any leadership or management role. The authors offer a three-step process for giving feedback involving preparation, delivery and follow-up. We think their tips on this topic are really useful, for feeding back to underperformers, just as much as to high-fliers.

We also really like the authors' techniques for getting promoted, so let's take a closer look at those. Many people believe their chances of promotion depend on how they've performed on a personal level – the targets they've met and the clients they've brought in to the business.

But how well you build the capabilities of the team around you and how effectively your team performs are actually more important than your direct contribution, the authors say. If your team performs really well, without your direct involvement, then you're ripe for promotion. In other words, you want to make yourself replaceable.

Another way to attract the attention of your superiors is to show that you know how to shift between leadership and management mindsets. This will signal that you're ready to move on to the next rung of the ladder. It'll also show that when you get there, you're likely to succeed rather than fail.

Also, analyze the position you want to move into and try to develop the skills that role requires while you're in your current job. Finally, being a great team player is an attractive quality to have. If you can prove that you can motivate your team, get them to work as a cohesive unit rather than a group of individuals, and that you're a valued member of that team, you're likely to catch the eye of your superiors.

In the final chapter of the book, the authors suggest readers take a leadership assessment, to work out whether they have the mindset and skills they need for their current position or the one they want to move in to. This is done online. They can then develop a personal management plan and a personal leadership plan.

The management plan will define what people need to do to leverage their strengths and reduce the impact of their weaknesses, while the leadership plan is more about who they need to be to fulfill their potential – it's about building a personal brand.

We like the fact the authors leave readers with something practical to do at the end of the book – we know it's very easy to read about ways we can improve our work lives, but it can be much harder to put advice into practice.

"Leadership Conversations" is really a comprehensive guide for anyone wanting to advance in a large organization. You may have come across some of its theories on leadership and management before, but the authors have done a good job of packaging their content, so that even well-worn ideas seem quite fresh.

The book's neatly structured, although it's not really one to dip in and out of – it's probably best to read it all the way through. And, if you do, you'll be well equipped to cope with the challenges that are inevitable in any organization.

"Leadership Conversations" by Alan Berson and Richard Stieglitz is published by Jossey-Bass.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.

Click here to buy the book from Amazon.