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Tacy M. Byham

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Beschreibung

Becoming the Very Best First-Time Leader Congratulations! You're now in charge. Perhaps it's your first time as a leader, or maybe you want to fine-tune your skills. Either way, you've begun one of the most rewarding chapters of your career. But, like many beginnings, the first few years can be challenging. Fortunately, you don't have to tackle this challenge on your own. Your First Leadership Job gives you practical advice straight from others who have walked in your shoes. Not only does it include dozens of tools to ensure your success, but it's also based on the authors' and DDI's extensive experience and research, which ultimately has led to the development of millions of leaders around the world. In fact, a quarter-million leaders will be developed this year alone via DDI training. Your First Leadership Job is divided into two sections. Part 1 introduces the concept of catalyst leader--one who sparks energy, passion, and commitment in others. Your transition to catalyst leader is a major step in your leadership journey. This book provides essential tips to put you on the catalyst path. Ultimately, leadership is about the many conversations--frequent, clear, authentic, and occasionally difficult--that you will have daily. Your First Leadership Job builds awareness of the fundamental skills you'll come to rely on to make every one of these interactions successful. Part 2 devotes 13 chapters to critical core leadership competencies, including coaching for success, hiring the best employees, turning dreaded appraisals into discussions that propel performance, and handling difficult employees. It also includes a chapter for first-time female leaders. Look at Your First Leadership Job as an indispensable companion to becoming an awesome leader--one who will make a positive, lasting impact on your team, family, and career. Visit www.yourfirstleadershipjob.com to learn more.

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Guide

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Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Your First Leadership Job

How Catalyst Leaders Bring Out the Best in Others

Tacy M. Byham &Richard S. Wellins

Cover image: iStock.com/tiler84

Cover design: Wiley

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2015 by Development Dimensions International. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with the respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom.

For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

ISBN 978-1-118-91195-2 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-91186-0 (ebk);

ISBN 978-1-118-91196-9 (ebk)

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my wonderful family.

Mom and Dad, as a little girl you challenged me to experiment, encouraged me to step up to new experiences, instilled curiosity in me, and showed me the world beyond Western Pennsylvania. You gave me wings to fly to any career that captured my attention—mathematician, computer scientist, arts business manager, singer—and I chose to come home. Dad, I am proud to be walking in your footsteps, and I look forward to building the Bill Byham legacy into the DDI of the next 45 years. And, Mom, I learned a tremendous amount by your side as you continue to speak with your heart and pride to inspire volunteers and community leaders. You both have been absolutely the best leadership models for me, and I am grateful to be a reflection of the two of you.

To my son, Spencer—you have grown into such a magnificent young man. Every day you make me grateful for a sense of humor, storytelling skills, and hugs before bed. You are presently 14 years old (or 3½ in leap years), and who knows where you may find yourself in the future. I can tell you that I can't wait to see you take your first steps into leadership. And I hope you'll turn to this book for advice when you get there.

It's been a decade since my last book, mainly because I couldn't find one I really wanted to write. This is one I really did.

I would like to dedicate it to my mom and in memory of my dad. While perhaps not knowing about it consciously, they were teaching me leadership lessons every day.

When this book is published, I will have just finished my thirty-sixth year at DDI. So, I also want to dedicate it to my two and only bosses—Bill Byham and Bob Rogers. Not only were they guides and mentors, but they also provided me with the freedom to learn, grow, and contribute. I consider myself very lucky, indeed.

Foreword

Leadership makes a difference.

You might not know that now. But you will.

I've been in banking my entire career, primarily with Fifth Third Bancorp, which operates in a dozen states in the Midwest and Southeast. Banking is an interesting business for many reasons, but one of them is this: We don't make anything. Our product is exactly like our competitors'. We borrow it for the most part, and it all looks the same. It's green, rectangular, and has the same relative value on a given day. In order to stand out in a crowded field, the focus needs to be on how we deliver that value—100 percent through our people.

I believe that leadership happens all around you. It happens in the tone you set and in the many, many conversations you have to accomplish one simple, but complex thing—bring people into the vision of the outcome you need.

But most people don't think about those things until they get their first leadership job. You're good at being an expert, and then you get promoted for your expertise into a completely different job. And so you experiment, because no one ever tells you—except for DDI—the right or wrong way to get the most commitment from the people around you.

Let me rewind the clock a bit. My first big leadership job was what my organization called a “broadening” responsibility—an assignment that addresses a challenge a company is having and that also helps a leader grow and develop. One day I was called in to see my boss's boss, the Vice Chairman, and I found myself being asked to take on a division in which I had no expertise. None. I was being asked to leave my job in human resources to run operations for the much larger holding company. And I would be leading folks who were highly technical, very proficient, and very experienced. I was in my mid-thirties, with three kids under 10 at home. My new reports were, in many cases, 20 years older. It was a challenging division in need of some significant change and facing big new performance goals.

I talked to some people who knew more about the challenges facing the operations division. I was worried, but I took the job. I knew going in that I didn't have a quarter of the knowledge of the people who had been there for years. And, I was going to need all of them to teach me.

That was the moment I knew I needed to rely on leadership.

We did a number of things, all of them focused on gaining people's trust. We began something new, what is now commonly called “one down” or “two downs.” We would regularly gather in large groups (some of the teams had 15 or 20 people), and I would encourage managers to talk about what they had accomplished. They could, in essence, brag to me. And then I would use those accomplishments to talk about what we could do if we all had the same vision. It sounds simple, but they were powerful moments. These conversations supplied the backbone for the kind of trust, vision-building, and engagement that, over time, helped everyone see how we could be recognized in the organization for the magnitude of the changes we were contemplating. I created a parade and gave them the opportunity to jump in front of it.

In the end, we accomplished one of the most significant changes in our company's history. We centralized operations, cut costs to the tune of 40 to 50 percent, improved service-level agreements and delivery, and boosted customer satisfaction.

So, now it's your turn. What will you do with the opportunity you've just been given?

I learned the concept of catalyst leadership from DDI early in my career, and this book will help you learn it too. You'll find out how catalysts can ignite a flame in others, gain their commitment, and drive productivity. Now, I've never met a perfect supervisor. I've never been one. Leadership takes work. But, the upside is tremendous—helping people achieve their goals and dreams.

We all approach leadership from different angles. But if you focus on the goal of catalyst leadership and put it in practice every day, then you'll bring out the best in others in surprising ways. You'll bring it about in yourself as well. And you'll love what you do.

Kevin T. Kabat

Vice Chairman and CEO at Fifth Third Bancorp

Preface

When we decided to write this book, we wanted to look at leadership through a fresh lens. After all, the last time we did a Google search, there were 392,000,000 entries for leadership books—double the number of cookbooks! There are leadership books written by or about the world's greatest thinkers (Confucius, Machiavelli, and Gandhi). And thousands of books on leadership have been published by dozens of management experts (Peter Drucker, John Kotter, Tom Peters, and Jim Collins, to name a few). All offer great stories, opinions, and practices of what constitutes the DNA of great leadership.

Our book, however, differs from all the rest in three respects.

It has a singular mission:

to give you the practical advice and tools to succeed as a first-time, first-line leader. The first section features nine chapters that will help you better understand what it takes to become an awesome leader—one we call a catalyst who sparks action in others. And it focuses on a set of fundamental skills—we call them

interaction skills

—that will serve as the foundation for every one of the dozens of conversations you'll have with others every day. These are skills you can use, not only in the workplace, but also at home and in your community. The second section provides advice on a host of diverse, vital skills—we call them

mastery and leadership skills

—that you'll need to call upon in your new role. These include coaching, selecting new employees, and promoting a culture of engagement, among others.

The content of this book is based on unparalleled experience.

For the past four decades, our company, DDI (Development Dimensions International), has helped clients

develop

over 250,000 leaders every year, in 26 countries, across thousands of organizations. Nothing we say in this book is based on whim or theory. It comes from real-time experience—a lot of it.

We carry our experience one step further to evidence.

DDI has helped hundreds of clients demonstrate the relationship between our leadership practices and principles with metrics that matter: improved skills, higher engagement, better safety records, and gains in productivity. We don't rest on our laurels;

we rest on our proof

.

Whether you read our book in detail or focus on those chapters that are the most relevant for you, we'll have accomplished our goal if you use three or four pieces of the advice we've provided. You know, in many ways you can look at this book as a hybrid between a typical leadership book and a cookbook. We provide the kitchen-tested recipes, but it's up to you to do the cooking.

and

Part 1:Project Initiation

Whether you are new to the role or have some experience with it, the road to being an effective leader is rife with challenges and joys. Catalyst leaders represent the gold standard—energetic, supportive, forward-thinking mentors who spark action in others. The first part of this book presents a clear picture of what catalyst leadership is really about. There are dozens of tips to make your journey as smooth as possible.

We also introduce the concept of leadership brand. Just like a company's brand makes it a distinct entity, your brand can cement your standing as an effective leader. And, there are clearly identifiable practices associated with your leadership brand that separate truly effective leaders from average or poor ones. So, in this section of the book we'll help you create a new leadership mind-set and get results for you and your team. Additionally, we provide guidance on how you can flawlessly execute in the face of competing priorities.

Finally, we share some secrets for making every interaction a successful one. As a leader, you have dozens of conversations with others every single day. Your ability to connect with them—by making people feel valued, heard, motivated, trusted, and involved—will go a long way toward making you a perfect leader!

Great leadership takes placeevery day, in the smallest of ways.

1Now You're a LeaderThe Journey Begins

So, now you're in charge.

When you accepted your first leadership job—or even seriously considered putting your hat in the ring—you took one of the most important and courageous steps in your career. You're a boss! You're going places.

How's it going? Are you sure? How do you know?

Chances are, you're perched precariously on an emotional range from “awkward excitement” to “abject terror” and back again, with a constant baseline of “stressed.” This shouldn't come as a surprise; you have a lot to prove. (Or, if you've been in the position for a while, you might have a lot to repair.) For over 45 years, our firm, DDI, has been an innovator in the field of talent management, which is a fancy way of saying that we help companies transform the way they hire, promote, and develop leaders. This book is based on what we've learned from developing more than eight million frontline leaders over four decades, in virtually every country and industry around the world. First-time leaders who transition well are more able to make a positive, lasting impact on their teams, families, and careers. Our approach helps people become engaged and more productive more quickly.

Speaking of stress, our research shows that a transition to a leadership position is among life's most challenging adjustments, ranking somewhere between personal illness and managing teenagers. In fact, only one in three leaders in our first transitional study felt they were effective in handling transitional challenges.1 For first-timers, the stress can be particularly acute. You are taking on not only a new type of role, but also one that exists in a business environment defined by fast-moving challenges: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. And you're in a unique position where your performance—or lack thereof—will determine whether your team will thrive or stall (along with your career). Are you as good as you need to be? Do you know what it means to get the best work from the people on your team? Will they hate you on sight? How will you determine if you're on track before it's too late?

The transition you're experiencing is profound enough for us to make a bold claim: Nobody comes to his first leadership position knowing everything he needs to know to succeed. When you get into truly unfamiliar emotional territory, your instinct might be to throw up your hands and try to do everything yourself. Perhaps you'll micromanage your team, take critical assignments away from direct reports as deadlines loom, or fail to give the kind of feedback that will help your team members do their jobs.

But let us make another bold claim: You'll find few greater rewards in your career than on the leadership journey you're about to begin. What you learn will transform the rest of your life in many wonderful ways. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is what you'll discover about your own ability to grow and be effective in the world. We believe that over time, the skills you'll learn can help you communicate more clearly with the people you love, become a more active member of your community, and make a difference for the causes you care about. This is a journey that leads to a happier life.

When I first got the job, there was a lot of pressure, Karen told us. She became a leader by surprise and default when her own supervisor took ill and needed an extended leave. Karen was an expert telecommunications engineer, but she suddenly had 30 more-senior people to manage and a big project to finish. I could tell that there was a lot of skepticism about me. And there already had been many failures in the project, like when a contractor failed to deliver. But Karen was able to find effective ways to get the work done—on time!—through the people around her, and has earned the respect of her peers. It has been the most gratifying thing! I was able to help them work well, and I still felt like myself. And we've been able to deliver a lot, and move the project to the next level. And now the whole company knows who our team is. Best of all, she now looks at her life differently. I learned I could be a real leader. I can make a contribution in lots of places.

Joe, a supervisor in a landscaping business, learned that deep satisfaction comes from being a key part of helping others reach their true potential. The very thing that is satisfying to me is watching the guys under me grow, he said. Joe had been unable to find a job in teaching, and instead worked his way up in a national landscaping company. Many of his direct reports were untrained, non-native English speakers, and their work could be a gateway to better things for them. That's when he realized that he had a role to play in their lives. I saw the other supervisors, and all they want to do is show up every day, do the work, and go home. But Joe saw an opportunity to share what he knew about leadership and business and to develop his team in a deeper way. I got dirty with them in the field, worked with them side by side. They began to trust me. And now I'm in a position to really watch them develop. Now I see that leadership goes back to the very reason I was interested in teaching in the first place.

The real opportunity of leadership, as we see it, is a deeply human one. But precisely because humans are involved, lots of things can go wrong. As an example of the type of challenge you may encounter in your first leadership role, meet John, 42, an urban planner. I got ambushed! he says of his most problematic direct report. John ran a loosely knit team of eight, but it was one young engineer who derailed him. And he didn't see it coming. She gave me no feedback of any kind. And then called me the worst boss in the world. It was John's first attempt at leading a team—something he knew pretty well. Or, so he thought. He'd worked well as an individual contributor on interdisciplinary teams, and like most people, had strong feelings about what a leader should and shouldn't do.

At first he was hands-off, figuring that everyone liked to work independently. I don't like working for people who are looking over my back all the time. So my approach was “you go do your thing, and I'll come to you when there's a problem.” When he felt the need to give input, I came in and took over, and it seemed like micromanaging. But nobody said anything to me. Until his six-month performance review. I was completely shocked when my boss told me what she [the young engineer] had said. Her complaints: John didn't set priorities, didn't pay attention to her work, took projects away from her with no explanation, and focused only on his own work. John realized too late that his hands-off style had backfired. And waiting for her to tell him what she needed out of a boss? I was told that because I was more senior, I should have known better. And I think that's right.

In our experience, it takes about 6 to 12 months for a new leader to hit stride or hit the skids. And that's exactly what happened to John. And once a major problem occurs, it might be hard to find the advocates you'll need to turn things around.

WE ASKED, LEADERS ANSWERED @Twitter

Q: The first time you managed people (not just a project) the emotion you felt was . . . ?#leadership

@nilofer

awkwardness

@TonyTSheng

terror that i would be revealed as not knowing what i was doing. Which i didn't. lol

@Mallory_C

nervous that I would royally screw it up and be that awful, clue-less boss—always want it to be a productive experience.

@BigM5678

Overwhelmed. Many years passed before I could delegate w/o feeling I should be doing it myself or it's not going to be right.

This book is targeted to what we believe is the most critical role in any organization, the frontline leader. You're more important than you might think! And now, you're in a unique position to positively impact your entire company by working productively not only with your team, but also with other supervisors, peers in other departments, customers—everyone.

We can help you answer important questions about your ability to lead before you misstep. We can help you experience the joy of leadership sooner by managing the real and powerful human emotions that can block your success. And we'll show you how to master the new skills leaders need to work effectively, such as coaching others, engaging people, delegating, tapping into your new network, hiring, and even running a meeting.

We wrote this book to help you master your new leadership role more quickly, while avoiding some of the headaches and heartaches many people experience. And for those of you who may have already made some key mistakes, we can help you put things back on track.

“Frontline,” “First-Time”—What's in a Label?

Throughout this book, we use the terms frontline leaders and first-time leaders interchangeably. First-time is fairly straightforward, referring to people either in their first leadership job, or those pondering a move into one. Frontline is more about the level of leadership. A frontline leader directly manages individual contributors. This leaves out higher-level employees, like middle managers or senior executives, who manage other leaders. Other terms for frontline leaders include supervisor, team leader, foreman, or manager.

How Is This Book Different from Other Leadership Books?

This book isn't based on one person's theory, a cobbled-together dataset, or an inspiring true story of running one campaign or landing a plane under difficult circumstances. (Some of these books are terrific, and we love them. They're just not what you need right now.) Instead, we're giving you specific, actionable information about what to do and how to do it, based it on a combination of hands-on experience and decades of solid research.

We include what we've learned from helping companies make thousands of frontline leadership selection and promotion decisions each year. We tell you about the competencies and attributes that lead to successful frontline leadership performance based on extensive job analyses we've conducted with hundreds of organizations—and how to develop them within yourself, starting today. And perhaps, most of all, when we call something a best practice, that claim is backed by dozens of research studies that demonstrate the impact of that practice on organizational performance.

At DDI, we believe that better leadership is far more science than art. Yet, it is based in a deep respect for and understanding of the people side of leadership. We believe that people can transform their relationships in work and life by modifying their behavior in simple, clear, and measurable ways. We've trained and sat with hundreds of new leaders just like you and personally shared the advice that's in this book. You'll hear some of their stories in these pages.

Although you can open this book at any point and find immediate solutions to problems you may be experiencing, we hope you first spend some quality time on the first section. These nine chapters distill DDI's work on early leadership and provide the best foundation for starting your leadership journey.

The second section is a deeper dive into some of the key skills you'll need to master in order to succeed. These mastery and leadership skills chapters can be read sequentially, or you can jump to the chapter that best meets your current need. Expect short, specialized content to help you tackle the nuts and bolts of mastering your new position. You'll also find checklists and discussion guides that you can use immediately in your working life. Revisit them often. And through our “Your First Leadership Job” microsite, we offer links to bonus chapters, online resources, content, and communities that can help you connect with other leaders in transition. You'll want to bookmark this site and return to it frequently:

www.YourFirstLeadershipJob.com

The book also includes exercises, quizzes, diagnostics, and other interactive tools in every chapter. We encourage you to explore them. Designed by orga-nizational psychologists, they've been proven effective over the years. Use them and you'll be more successful . . . and find your job more enjoyable.

In addition to the research cited throughout this book, you'll meet real people who have shared their experiences as first-time leaders. Each story conveys a lesson, insight, success story, or cautionary tale. (We've changed names and masked companies to encourage candor.) We've also queried people via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Quora, looking for stories and inspiration from their own leadership journeys. You'll find results from our questions and surveys throughout the book.

If you have one takeaway from this book, it should be this: Great leadership takes place every day, in the smallest of ways. It is reflected first and foremost in your conversations, the way you influence others, and how you interact with the people on your team and in your network. But the first step in your leadership journey is to think of yourself not as a boss, but as someone who can and should ignite a chain reaction of effectiveness that positively impacts direct reports, customers, vendors, peers, and supervisors alike. Your journey starts with a very specific kind of spark.

Citation

1.

Matt Paese and Simon Mitchell,

Leaders in Transition: Stepping Up, Not Off

(Pittsburgh: Development Dimensions International, 2007).

A catalyst leader is someonewho ignites action in others.

2Boss or Catalyst?What Makes a Great Leader?

Your New Job: Catalyst Leader

The term boss has taken a real beating both in work and popular culture. In movies the boss tends to be a ruthless gangster or amoral chieftain. In digital gaming, the boss is the last, biggest, and most horrific in a series of monsters that must be defeated. But in the workplace, now it's you. And you've got an image problem. Search for “Bad Boss” on Google and find over 36 million entries. Headlines include “Ten Things Only Bad Bosses Say,” “What Makes a Bad Boss Bad,” or, our favorite, “How to Survive 13 Types of Dysfunctional, Disrespectful and Dishonest Little Dictators.” There are even multiple websites for bad bosses. One, BadBosses.com, shows a photo of a person with the head of a wolf. Needless to say, you don't want to become the wolf in your office.

Consider Marian, a marketing and social media specialist and writer in a communications department at a midsized university. She had the classic bad boss: didn't communicate, failed to set team goals, missed deadlines, and played poorly with his peers in other departments. His inefficiency gave the department a bad reputation throughout the whole campus.

When Marian's boss was abruptly fired, the team was shocked. We had no idea he was so unpopular outside of our team, she said. But when Marian was tapped as his interim replacement, there was a catch: He had negotiated to stay on for six months and was refusing to announce Marian's new job or even train her for it. And all of this remained a secret. He told me that he didn't want to be seen as a lame duck, but it got really awkward, she said. As the months ticked by and no replacement was announced, the team became more and more anxious about the future and other departments began to openly revolt. To make matters worse, the not-yet-exiting chief had run projects aground across the university and had badly alienated senior leadership. Nasty surprises abounded. Marian, who was a half-time employee about to run a team of 11, had no idea what to do. This is his legacy, Marian said. And I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to turn it around. (For more on how Marian used her new network to revive her demoralized team, see Chapter 19 on networking.)

When we train frontline leaders, we use a different word that paints a far more positive picture than describing a leader as an irresponsible or horrific boss: catalyst. Much like an ingredient that induces a chemical reaction, a catalyst leader is someone who ignites action in others. That ignition might jump-start a change in an inefficient process, spawn a new idea for a new product, or, most important, effect change in others.

Both our research and observations show dramatic differences between poor and even average leaders and those we would label catalyst leaders. The latter have a knack for building engagement, involving others, and capitalizing on people's strengths and diverse viewpoints. And, they rarely blame others. Rather, they accept accountability to deliver on expectations.

Figure 2.1 illustrates what being a catalyst leader is all about.

Fig 2.1Catalyst Leader

Whether you're a new leader or have a few years of experience, becoming a catalyst leader is hard work. It doesn't happen overnight. The common characteristic in great catalysts is their passion to become better leaders. They're constantly building their leadership skills. They're also introspective—looking in the mirror every day and asking what they could do to become better leaders.

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Tool 2.1 is a self-assessment of your current proficiency as a catalyst leader. It will allow you to pinpoint strengths and areas you might want to work on.

Catalyst Leader Self-Assessment

Catalyst leaders find opportunities to ignite action in others. Are you a catalyst leader? To find out, first circle the number for each item that represents your current behavior. Next, add the numbers to determine your catalyst index. Finally, in the column to the right, check () the three boxes opposite the behaviors you want to focus on.

*To download and print this form in pdf format, go to www.YourFirstLeadershipJob.com.

What Enables Frontline Leadership Success: A Deeper Look

Over the past four decades, DDI has conducted hundreds of job analyses in just about every industry and all over the world. Many of these were aimed at frontline leadership roles and involved conducting interviews with the leaders and their managers to gather information on factors that differentiate average from truly outstanding performance. The data, once consolidated, is transformed into what we call a Success ProfileSM. Our clients then use their success profiles as part of their selection, promotion, performance appraisal, and development programs. As shown in Figure 2.2, there are four components to a success profile for a frontline leader.

Fig 2.2Success Profile

In Tool 2.2, you'll find many of these frontline leader “success factors.” Look at this tool as a compass to point you in the right direction. If you're considering a leadership position for the first time, you might ask yourself how you stack up against the profile. If you're already a leader, you can use the tool to guide your growth and development. Pick a few elements that might not be as strong as you'd like and incorporate them into your development plans. But, just as important, choose some strengths and use them to your advantage.

One friendly word of caution: You can acquire knowledge, and you can seek experience. You can adjust some behaviors. But personality elements are much tougher to change. For example, a high degree of arrogance—which is another way of saying overconfidence—is likely to derail your career. And you won't find a training course to make yourself less arrogant. Leaders normally don't go astray because they lack skills. More often than not, it's a personality mismatch. (We'll discuss this further in the Mastery chapters on selection and retention.) So, pay close attention to these factors when considering a move into leadership and be honest with yourself. Many former leaders have said that they gladly returned to a team member role. That can be a smart decision for many!

Frontline Leadership Success Profile

Write an “S” in each box that represents a strength. Write a “D” in each box that represents a development need for you.

KNOWLEDGECOMPETENCIES In-depth knowledge of your company's products, services, and customers Understanding of how your team fits into the overall organization Familiar with various company policies/processes Business acumen, including understanding company strategy, competition, supply chain, financial metrics Knowledge of your chosen field (e.g., finance, marketing, IT) Building trust Delegating responsibility Planning and organizing Selecting talent Facilitating change Decision making Coaching Fostering innovation Building a successful team Creating networksEXPERIENCEPERSONAL ATTRIBUTES Leading a cross-functional or special team Providing feedback to others Coaching/Mentoring Planning and managing complex projects Working closely with internal/external customers Making difficult decisions Having functional experience in one or more disciplines (e.g., sales, IT, R&D) Navigating organization politics

Enablers:

Enjoys being with other people Desire to continually learn High achievement orientation/driver for results Sensitive to the needs/concerns of others

Derailers:

Always seeking praise and approval from others Overly self-confident, dismissive of others' ideas Inability to read others' intentions Indecisive, can't make decisions Micromanaging/Controlling others Difficulty controlling emotions

*To download and print this form in pdf format, go to www.YourFirstLeadershipJob.com.

The Bottom Line

The journey to being an excellent leader is a long one, and the road can be rough. However, the rewards along the way can be very satisfying if you've chosen to be a leader for the right reasons. A few years back, we asked over 1,200 employees around the world what they thought about their managers. One question we asked was, What differentiates the best boss from the worst boss you ever worked for? Sadly, only 22 percent of employees feel they are currently working for their best boss ever. As you might expect, they rated their best bosses as two to three times more likely to use catalyst behaviors. Nearly 68 percent of employees who are currently working for their worst managers ever are looking at leaving. And, more surprisingly, only 11 percent of employees working for their worst boss ever are motivated to “give their best.” Compare that to the employees working for their best boss. The percentage jumps to 98!1

In another piece of research, we asked employees how much more productive they could be if they went back to work for their best-ever boss. One in four said they would be anywhere from 40 to 60 percent more productive.2

Reflection Points Explained

Throughout this book we'll be prompting you to think about where you are on your leadership journey. If you keep a journal in any form—Moleskine®, Evernote, digital recorder, whatever—consider memorializing your thoughts. Use these reflections to chart your progress, clarify next steps, and examine the emotions that might be undermining your effectiveness. Use your observations to help you gather useful feedback from trusted sources, and share meaningfully with others online and in real time. They'll also make excellent fodder for your best-selling memoir when you become a Big Shot.

Reflection Point

What makes you most anxious when you review Tool 2.2? Look at the boxes you marked with a “D” (development need). Are your concerns valid? Choose one or two items as a monthly To-Learn list. Consider consulting with a trusted member of your network for advice and feedback.

Then, look at the boxes you marked with an “S” (strength). Which of these can you leverage?

What will your list look like in six months? In 12 months?

Citations

1.

Pete Weaver and Simon Mitchell,

Lessons for Leaders from the People Who Matter,

Trend Research (Pittsburgh: Development Dimensions International, 2012), 12.

2.

Ibid., 14.

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

– Jack Welch

3Navigating the Transition to LeadershipThe Mind-Set You Need to Succeed

When Mary described how she felt about her first leadership job, she repeatedly used the same term: “off-center.”