[Reading time ~10 minutes]
Many aspiring leaders at the beginning of their journeys often find themselves struggling with what to do and how to behave. A lot of times, people that are new in leadership positions don’t know where to start and how to put a handle on their teams and businesses. Other times, even experienced leaders have a sense of disconnection between who they are and what their teams and organizations expect from them in a leadership role.
I remember my first leadership role came as a surprise after trying my luck with an interview for which I gave myself no chance of taking. I was 24, had no previous management experience and was competing for the role with the full team that I was about to manage. They were older than me, way more experienced in their roles and quite senior within the organization. After an HR assessment center where I scored best on the leadership skills, my new boss took a risk and gave me the job as he valued the potential he saw in me beyond my lack of experience.
The next day I woke up managing what seemed to be a hostile team of experienced professionals that felt they lost the role they aspired for, to a more junior guy. They were now eager to prove I’m not cut out for it. What followed was a steep learning curve that, as challenging as it was, proved to be one of the most fulfilling career moments for me. It was the foundation of who I am as a leader. Many of my achievements today are built on the very same foundation that in the meantime has been adjusted and re-enforced.
Many times I needed help, guidance and support in this leadership journey so I’m going to share ten tips that helped me grow as a leader that hopefully apply to you too if you encounter yourself in a similar position, at the beginning of your leadership path.
Learn – Like all business specialties, leadership requires a lot of learning. The thing is, it’s not an exact science like, for example, finance or engineering. It’s a continuous refinement of what we learn from others (peers, bosses, books, mentoring, etc) combined with self reflection, coaching, trial and error, feedback and many others. I have never felt so useless as my first day in my leadership role. I did not know what to do and where to start. My team seemed to pretend I am not there and I felt some this kind of expectation that I needed to step up. The first thing I’ve done once I got home that day was to read Jack Welch’s book called “Winning”, which was recommended by new boss. I devoured the book which created a foundation for all my trials and errors that started from there. I still consider this the best foundation I could have and am grateful I ran into this reading the moment I did. There is a ton of literature on leadership and at some point, after reading enough, you will be able to find a red line that could serve as a foundation for you.
Observe – Through time, I realized that leadership is best taught by “stealing” as I like to call it or observing people I looked up to. While people might talk about what works and what not, it’s much like the preacher that doesn’t do what he preaches. Observing an effective leader is much more insightful than asking him or her the recipe for success. I’ve carefully observed all leaders in the organization. The way they talk, the way they behave, the way they make decisions, as well as the reactions they get in return. I’ve learned to be mindful about what works and what not and tried to incorporate that into my own doing. Last but not least, I reflected a lot on what works for me, what I can learn from others mistakes and what is not a fit for me. The first time I became a manager, I was a copy cat of my boss with good and bad. Through time, I’ve learned that some things work for me while others either don’t match my style or personality, or they simply don’t have the expected impact. Therefore I looked how other leaders do, as well as explored with my own ideas on how to tackle certain aspects which provided me with an entire range of options on how I can tackle different situations. I’ve kept the ones that worked and integrated them into my leadership style and dumped what wasn’t useful.
Self reflect– I’ve always had a tendency towards introversion, so reflecting on my actions, behavior and feelings is something that was always easy for me. With being a leader, I found out this is rather an advantage than a disadvantage as long as I can switch to being an extrovert in social situations. Later on, I found out this ability of taking the best of both worlds is called being an ambivert. I believe that introvert leaders have a better ability to self reflect which helps a lot in their development. Self reflection allows integrating feedback, analyzing what is there to improve but also what is it that goes well. It also helps analyzing others reactions to own actions and behavior and calibrating those towards getting the impact we expect as leaders. Introvert leaders is a topic for many debates as nobody wants an avoiding, absent leader, right? That’s why it’s important to be able to shift to an extrovert behavior once the self-analysis is done. This allows putting into practice all your findings and enjoying collaboration, company from others as much as it allows for being an inspiration for your teams beyond words and actions, through the energy you bring to the room.
Be vulnerable – People like authentic leaders. This generates connection and trust and nothing boosts trust more than a leader that is able to admit to his own mistakes and that listens to feedback and then does something with it. Some leaders fear vulnerability just as some team members expect that they are perfect and know everything. Truth be told, leaders are only humans. We have our weaknesses and insecurities, we make mistakes and we have emotions as much as we learned to manage them. When I first got my leadership role, the turning point was a meeting with the entire team where I’ve put my feelings on the table. I said “guys, I realize it’s hard for your to accept me in this role and believe me, it’s hard for me to be in this position as well. I realize you all wanted this position and probably feel you deserve it considering your experience. What I can say is that I really wanted this as well, and since I was selected, there must be something I did well. I hope you give me the chance to prove my strengths as I’m eager to use them to make this team even more successful. I realize there are resentments and I don’t mind that. Just be sure I’m committed to do everything I can to support you and make sure we thrive together.” There was silence in the room and I had no idea about the impact of these words I’ve expressed with the deepest consideration I was capable of. To my surprise, the next day, the attitude has shifted from hostile to neutral and then I understood I need to step up and live to my promises. Few years later, after reading Brene Brown’s book called “The Power of Vulnerability”, I’ve allowed myself to be even more vulnerable in my teams and observe what happens. Trust and engagement increased in the teams and people generally felt more open to give and receive feedback. The golden rule here is not to use vulnerability as an excuse for not delivering or not showing up. I’ve found that vulnerability works best when it is publicly acknowledged but individually owned. Nobody wants excuses or self pity. As long as it’s owned, vulnerability generates connection and trust.
Be authentic – Speaking about authenticity, vulnerability is not the silver bullet. There are lots of expectations from leaders and sometimes the struggle is delivering on those without disconnecting from our own personality or needs we might have. In the beginning of my leadership journey I struggled a lot with finding my style. As I practiced things from books or what I’ve seen others do combined with what I felt my teams expect, I often asked myself “Who am I? Is the leader just a role and I’m the actor trying to put on the best performance I’m capable of?” I realized I was disconnected from who I really am and playing this role was very energy draining. I went into coaching and found out that it’s perfectly safe to be my own self and approach matters with my personal touch. I’ve allowed myself to make mistakes and learn from them and developed my own way of dealing with things relying on the foundation I was developing but without copying what I saw others do. This brought me more confidence as a leader and filled me with the joy of being who I wanted to be rather than who everyone else expected me to. I started smiling more and taking energy from my leadership exposure rather than consuming energy.
Listen – While this sounds like a cliché, I cannot underline the importance of good, proper listening. People want to feel heard, seen and valued and this is what active listening does. Listening enough and listening well creates a culture within organization where people trust each other, they speak up and they feel good. This generates engagement and performance and allows management to “feel” how the organization is doing rather than presume it, only based on figures and hard facts. For me, listening is a superpower that really makes the difference between a leader who knows their organization and a leader that lives their organization. The first thing I’ve done once I got to a neutral relationship with my first team, I asked them what they need. I did not expect what was about to come. I’ve written pages of expectations, issues they struggled with and topics where they needed support. I’ve taken them one by one for the next months and by the end of the period, I was well accepted into the team as everyone felt I’ve proven myself to them. From hostile, they were now my supporters. We trusted and respected each other for the commitment and reliability we showed to one another. This was the first seed planted into the servant leadership jar that grew into a personal practice that truly reflects my values and leadership style today.
Make decisions – While sometimes listening is just enough, most of the times it needs to be followed by decisions. People expect outcomes from their conversations, reports, meetings, feedback and issues. This means that as a leader, you’re in the spot for making lots of decisions every minute. Inexperienced leaders sometimes make decisions slower as they doubt themselves more. I often see this struggle as I used to have it as well. What I’ve learned is that most of the times it is better to make a bad decision than not making one at all. Leaders that make decisions grasp opportunities, inspire people and create a dynamic organization. You might thing it backfires by increasing the chances of failure but in reality, if you turn it around, failure is learning and an organization that fails a lot, learns a lot. As long as failures lead to lessons, fast decision making is a driver for resilient leaders and organizations.
Empower and delegate – One of the biggest difficulties for new managers is delegation. When we come from being individual contributors to leaders, the tendency is to do everything ourselves. It makes us feel useful and in control. I’ve had difficulties with delegating for quite a long time in my first years of leadership. I thought I was doing well with delegating until I switched from a team of 20 people where I knew in detail about what each team member does, to a team of 100 people. Anxiety and the feeling of lack of control was normal as it was a huge step outside the comfort zone. I realized I should no longer rely on my own knowledge and expertise but empower my team to make decisions as they are the experts in their field. It’s been a significant mind shift as all of a sudden, I found that my role has changed fundamentally. I was no longer expected to know everything and be involved in everything but rather provide a sense of direction and guidance to the team and acknowledge the fact that they are the experts in their field. As much as I would have liked to be aware about all details, it was almost impossible. Moreover, it was no longer expected from me in my new role as my objectives were different. So I focused on keeping the team motivated, ensure goals are clear as well as implementing a structure that allowed us to monitor and control what is important, to be able to take proactive measures the minute something is not on par with what we want to do.
Own your failures – Nobody likes to be in a blame and shame culture where fingers are pointed the moment something goes off. I’ve learned that as a leader, I am the first one to own failures and present them as lessons rather than critics towards the team. Sometimes ego prevents us from acknowledging mistakes and there is a certain tendency to blame others but I found that a real team doesn’t fear failures and uses them as opportunities to learn and improve. Therefore, don’t be afraid of failing. Embrace and accept it as this facilitates an open culture of being honest, learning from mistakes and feeling comfortable in the workplace. \One of the biggest lessons for me was with customers that escalated human errors. They were pushing for solutions and most of the times we found preventive actions to avoid similar failures in the future but when we were not able to come up with these, naturally there was a tendency to explain that it’s not really our fault. This caused a strong reaction from customers that pushed even harder to come up with something that is fail proof. What I found out is that the guarantee that is often expected, is often an acknowledgement of the mistake and a sincere apology. This will do miracles when there isn’t anything more that can be done on the practical side.
Keep your eye on the ball – As leaders, many topics are thrown towards us from team members, customers and stakeholders alike. Sometimes it’s difficult to manage all these expectations and discern what is urgent and what is important. While the Eisenhower matrix is a good tool to start with, I found out it’s often not enough. I believe experienced leaders guide themselves by having a feel of what brings value to the organization at each moment. Sometimes you need half of the organization in that crisis call to make sure things don’t go out of hand while realizing true value is avoiding those situations in the first place. I like to look at it as a mix of working for maintaining the as/is while focusing on the future and what needs to be done so that the stakeholders, employees and clients will still be happy in 3 months as well as in the next 3 years. I find that inexperienced leaders spend a lot of time in fire-fighting mode as it allows them to be in control and have a feel of accomplishment. More senior leaders work towards the future and where the organization will be in a few years by establishing structure and governance that allows the as/is to be ran with minimal effort, almost seamless. In my first years as a leader, I would have difficult conversation with my superiors as they expected me to work towards the future objectives, while I felt I was dragged in the day to day topics and had no bandwidth to even think about what would happen the next day. What helped me rise beyond the day to day firefighting is scheduling time to reflect and discuss about the future and how we’re going to get there rather than how to end the week.
As stated in the intro, there isn’t a clear recipe for successful leadership but hopefully these tips and insights with give you at least some ideas to start from into developing your leadership capabilities. Don’t hesitate to write to me to discuss further on these topics that I’m so passionate about.
Cheers!