Being
Shepherd
Leadership lifestyle for the new-age
CEO
Chapter 3
It
is not uncommon to hear of a senior-level manager lose his job after assuming a
new role at a more senior level. What might have seemed like a growth prospect
boomerangs back owing to factors like greater responsibility, larger teams and
movement to a bigger organization, geographically dispersed companies. Such
executives are casually tagged as ‘not being ready for a larger role’ or simply
‘incompetent’.
But
how can a person suddenly shift from highly competent to highly incompetent
just because he’s got a greater responsibility. It is impossible for competence
to shrink so starkly. What lacks is the ‘need for a shift in attitude to manage
self and the team’. People fail because they continue to lead from the front by
relying on the same fundamentals and principles deployed in previous roles.
In
other words, they tend to bank on their strengths. And this is the first
fundamental that you need to change basis the Being Shepherd Leadership Lifestyle
guideline. A fact that your strengths got you thus far is no assurance of it
taking you any further. This is the very reason why large corporations often choose
to hire a new CEO from outside the company rather than elevating one from
within. They intrinsically lack faith in the existing executives in level-two
leadership to raise themselves for the new role.
Raising
oneself for a new role calls for a shift in 3 key parameters (1) Leadership
Style (2) Technical Skills (3) Vision Charting. These need to be aligned to the
organizations key objectives and your key result areas. I would like to point
out that often we stress too much on the expectations of our job and we tend to
forget our personal goals and priorities. It is important to not lose
‘yourself’ for a job.
I
recommend using the following tools to assess yourself and grow simultaneously
in your job and personal space.
STEP
1 : GOAL SETTING
a. Job
Goal: Draw out a list of the specific attainable targets basis
the objectives that your organization has set for itself. This must include a
combination of some specific measureable elements and desired goodwill standards. Eg : Growth in top line by 20%, drop in the
high attrition rate by 15%, a tag of a happier and fun place to work (unmeasurable
: note that happier and fun are two varied expectations).
b. Personal
Goal: Draw out a list of objectives that you want to achieve in
your personal space or that along with your friends and family. Eg. Kids must
feel the need to turn to me with their concerns, more social life, a new hobby,
more personal time with the spouse.
Let
the list be as long as possible. Keep in mind to not write generic but specific
Goals that you need to score to succeed. Eg : Better working conditions vs drop
in attrition rate along with fun working environment.
STEP
2 : SKILL MAPPING
a.
Job
Skill: Make a list of the specific skills that are required (by you
or your core team members) to achieve the objectives laid out in Job Goal (1.a)
and your KRA’s. Eg :
·
For growth in numbers : sales &
negotiation skills
·
For reduction in attrition : understanding
of HR tools used to measure team satisfaction
·
For a fun place tag : counseling and
psychologists’ skills who help articulate the definition of fun as expected by
your team. Because what might be fun to you might not always be aligned to
where the largest base of your team’s expectations lie.
·
As a part of your CXO KRA’s - approving
marketing strategies : data/analytics skills, innovative/out of the box
thinking skills
b.
Personal
Skills: From Personal Goals (1.b) : detail the specific instances
that your family might have expressed to you on what they feel is lacking from
your end. Further add to the list on this that you might really want to do for
family or self.
STEP
3
By
now, YOU are getting to be quite a project. There’s lots of raw data and the
question is, how to use it to the best?
Most
people who believe in leading from the front, think that they know the answers
to their problems and they continue to do as they know best. It’s time to try
something different. Start with leading yourself from behind.
Plot
all the above data from Skill Mapping on the chart below (Fig. 1). Separately
for professional and personal matters.
Most
people who believe in leading from the front tend to focus on the left quadrants.
They believe in doing things they are good at and by default do more of what
they love doing. At all times thus, they continue doing what they did in their
previous roles and fail to promote themselves.
If
you were promoted from the job of a sales head to a CXO and you still focus on
your strengths, the new sales head, who has taken over your role, will naturally
feel stifled. It displays lack of trust. Almost 80% of all resignations are
triggered by lack of trust or low empowerment. Since you had complete charge in
your previous role, it is your responsibility to let the new person in the job try
her best her way. In fact since you
are so good at it, by applying adequate Being Shepherd Leadership Lifestyle tools
(to be explained in later chapters), you will be able to lead her from behind
far more effectively. More so, if you are micro-managing or championing the job
of your team member, because you love doing it or because you are the best at
it in the organization, in true terms you are failing to promote yourself and
are doing a greater disservice to yourself.
Additionally,
it is important to be aware of the fact that what you love doing might not
always be what you are good at. You might have heard of marketing campaigns
gone wrong because a new CEO, formerly a sales head, presided over the
marketing heads role. The CEO positively must have loved the creative debate of
a communication campaign, but alas! Often love is blind. Hence, if you have done a fair analysis of
self, some of the points in Fig. 1 quadrant A might also reflect in Fig. 1 quadrant
C
Having
done a detailed and fair analysis of plotting yourself on the 4 quadrants, it
is now time to lead yourself from behind and focus on what will make you a
great leader.
Hereon,
in the next few chapters we will focus on how to use the raw data you have
culled about yourself and apply the Being Shepherd leadership lifestyle on self
before applying it on your team, your peers, and other influencers and decision
makers.
It’s time for you to lead from behind as a Shepherd
does to his sheep; align only those who go astray.
Subscribe Now for Next Edition
Please leave your comments and thoughts and engage those who might need it more than you.
No comments:
Post a Comment