Making a Move to Leadership

So, you have just been promoted and now you have people reporting to you.  Congratulations!  Now what?

Well, if you have been promoted within an area where the work is familiar to you, you might think that not much will change.  You will continue on as you always have but with supervisory responsibilities added.  Sounds simple enough. And besides, as a new “boss” you’ll be able to get things done the way you want them done and delegate some things to others into the bargain.  Sounds like a pretty good deal.

If you have been promoted to a new area where the work is not as familiar, you will have the additional challenge of getting up to speed on the work as well, which will be perhaps a little more difficult, but nothing you can’t handle.

In either case, if you are thinking that not much has changed, except that you can now do some delegating, you would be wrong.  In fact even if you sit in the same chair, work with the same people and report to the same boss, as soon as you are given the responsibility to lead others, I would assert that your whole  job has changed. This week we’ll take a look at this change on three fronts;

• Change in what you do
• Change in how your performance is judged
• Change in how you relate to others

We’ll examine each of these areas in more detail later this week.

In the meantime here’s Something to Read: John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do., a Harvard Business Review Book.

It sounds more egg-headed than it is and gives some sound insights into the work of Leadership.

Something to Think About: When you first became a leader what did you expect would happen?  What actually happened?  What are you learning from the gap between your expectations and reality?

That’s it for now.  More later.