I don’t know how to succeed anymore.
The thought so many of my clients have as they transition into higher levels of responsibility. They get to the table only to realize that strategic leadership is full of so much guesswork and willingness to take chances that they are convinced the problem must be them. The leaders that came before them somehow had it all figured out and spoke confidently, they surely must have had more answers than questions. But guess what? They didn’t have any more answers than the rest of us. The leaders who succeed simply found a way to move from producing very tangible outcomes to making ambiguous outcomes tangible.
Let me explain that further. Whether it’s finance, engineering or HR, the early roles we had were spent on very tangible outcomes. Track the numbers, create a widget or fill these roles. We knew exactly how to succeed and what had to be done. Then, we moved to management. In these roles, we still had some projects we owned (creating something slightly more complex than we did in our individual contributor roles) and then the rest of our role was spent on managing others’ outcomes. As we achieve higher levels of leadership, things start to become ambiguous. Instead of projects, we start making decisions with no right answers, figuring out the tweaks required to get projects, departments, or people from flailing to thriving, transitioning the workforce through change, and creating things that have never been done before.
The mindset that got us through those early levels of working must transition with us into these higher levels of working. That requires us to focus our brain on the new outcomes that may not be so obvious. For example, say a leader comes in to revive a flailing team. The unmanaged mind will say their outcomes are based on the results and so that’s how they measure themselves. The leader demands hard work and perfection, stepping into action when things don’t get done to do it themselves. They thrive on being the hero and the one to “save” the department. They have no connection to the people involved, only to the results. The team is defeated, taking no satisfaction in the success. That is, if they’ve even stuck around to see it. When in doubt, do. That’s the mantra. The leader does it all and at the end, it’s an empty satisfaction.
Contrast that with a leader that looks at their role differently. Do the results matter? Yes. But leaders are not measured on doing. They are measured on creating through others. So the leader looks at what is required to make that happen. Everyone must know the goal and how their role wins. They understand what is expected of them along the way. The leader sets up a strong accountability system through 1:1’s where feedback is shared consistently. No one is left questioning where they stand and how they are doing. Mistakes are quickly adjusted in an urgent fashion by the owners of the actions and not by the leader. Decisions are made at all levels, because of the trust that failure is allowed and supported. The entity is strong because of the leadership, but can exist well beyond it. If people aren’t succeeding, it’s by choice, not by lack of support or knowledge.
This is the power of a strong leadership operating system combined with organizational processes that take leadership and make it tangible. The latter example is a leader who stopped solely measuring the results and instead, held themselves accountable to the structure required for success. The results are always there in the background like a check engine light, warning the leader of potential danger, but not always the best indicator that something significant is wrong with the inner workings.
What kind of leader are you? Do you jump in and do the work in order to save your team from failure? Or maybe you step so far back your organization is running on hope with no real substance? Now is a great time for a reboot.