NextGen Know-How: Three pillars of exceptional leadership
Leaders need to get out of the technical weeds and focus on these key responsibilities to facilitate a positive, result-driven team.
One of the biggest challenges professionals face when promoted to a leadership role is determining where to focus their time and energy. In a contributor role, we are rewarded for technical expertise and skill. The transition to leadership can be very different and challenging, as many professionals have not been prepared and developed to master the competencies that are necessary for success as leaders.
I remember the first time my vice president gave me feedback after I had been promoted to assistant director of human resources. It was about two months into my new leadership role, and she called me into her office to tell me to stop doing my old job. In my previous role as human resources generalist, I performed several technical jobs, such as processing payroll and benefits. While I wasn’t still processing payroll every two weeks, anytime someone had a payroll or benefits issue, they came to me to fix them. My boss told me I needed to start delegating; fixing payroll and benefits issues was not my job anymore, and I was expected to coach my employee to perform those functions. She wanted me to focus on creating leadership programs to develop our management team. This was a big shift for me, as I had always equated my value with my technical HR expertise. But in my new leadership role, the competencies required and the value I needed to contribute were vastly different from my previous role.
For many new managers, leadership can feel less tangible than their previous technical role. We aren’t sure where to spend our time, so we become fixers (jumping in to solve problems our employees should take care of) instead of facilitators (facilitating dialogue and coaching employees on how to handle challenges themselves).
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