GROW AS A LEADER
I
How Will You
Grow As A Leader?
once posed a question to a group of
CEOs and business owners: “How
did you learn to be a leader?” grow your business without growing
the leadership skills of people in the
business (including those of the CEO).
The best answer I received was “I
watched what my Dad did and then
did the opposite.” An interesting insight
and a few others nodded their heads in
agreement. Apart from this, however,
there was no response. This highlights
what I’ve found is a common problem:
there’s a lack of knowledge on how to
intentionally grow as a leader. This is a
problem because you can’t sustainably Let me explain this by looking at a
common scenario: someone has just
been promoted at work. We all know
that the nature of their work relationships
will change in that former peers may
become direct reports and former
bosses will now be peers. This alone
would be challenging enough, but the
unfortunate truth from a leadership-
skill perspective is that the skills they
exhibited to earn their promotion may
not be the same ones they’ll need in
their new role. In fact, their old skills
could be very wrong for their new role.
So, by what process does one identify
and develop new leadership skills?
The process I use can be described as
follows:
•
• Step 1: Assess where the person is at.
• Step 3: Identify the new skills
required by Step 2.
•
Step 2: Decide what’s important for
them to be successful in the new
role.
Step 4. Coach the person on how to
develop those skills.
The process is rather simple, yet I am
often asked, how does one figure out
what to work on?
Here is a simple competency hierarchy
that I’ve found useful. It explains what
happens when people move up the
corporate ladder. What I like is it starts
people thinking about what skills they’ll
need in their new role. It also eliminates
the widespread belief that “leaders are
born not made.” In this model, all skills
are learnable, and everyone who has
the will, can improve their skills.
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SPRING 2018