Here’s a Thought About First-Level Leadership Development

(2020年8月5日)

By Tom Roth, Chief Operating Officer, and Michael Leimbach, PhD, Wilson Learning Worldwide

An HR Priorities Survey conducted by Gartner, a global research and advisory firm, identified “Developing current and future leadership bench strength” among the top five initiatives HR leaders selected as most important for their organizations to address in 2020. However, a recent study by Wilson Learning Worldwide and Training magazine indicates that less than half of these organizations are confident that they have this needed bench strength.

If employees are not skilled for the future and organizations are struggling to develop critical talent segments, including our current and future leaders, we are not going to get where we need to go in today’s tumultuously changing times. This is even more acute when people are moving into first-level leadership roles and need skills just to survive.

The Challenge: When Doer Is Promoted to Leader

“Here’s a thought about” the unique needs of first-level leaders. When new leaders are promoted, they leave work one day having been responsible for only their own performance, and then return the next day suddenly responsible for others’ performance.

If new leaders are not prepared for this transition, what is their response? They fix problems through their own job knowledge; they train by “let me show you how it’s done.” This then becomes a habit—fixing problems by stepping in, being heroic, and failing to advance the skills of their employees.

In other words, they lead with their Technical Expertise, not their Leadership Credibility.

Thus, even “experienced” first-level leaders may be on shaky ground because they never received any formal leadership development; rather, they’re on their own, learning by observation and lots of trial and error.

An Insight: When Doer Needs to Become a Leader

First-level leaders without the needed preparation resort to “leading with their technical expertise.” Why? Because transitioning to leadership can mean navigating uncomfortable new territory that may not come naturally. New leaders are under stress and do whatever they can to get by. They revert back to their strengths and what’s worked in the past, relying on what they are most comfortable with—their technical expertise.

The First-Level Leader’s Dilemma

So, this is the first-level leader’s dilemma: How do I keep performance high, while at the same time supporting the learning curve of my employees by not stepping in to “fix things”? We have found there are two critical components:

1. Adopt a leadership attitude that their job is not to do, but to help others do.
2. Develop the leadership skills needed to guide, engage, and direct the actions of others.

The challenge for new leaders is to rely less on their functional credibility from their technical expertise and instead begin to establish their credibility as a leader. From the perspective of developing leadership character, new first-level leaders require the wisdom to make leadership their source of credibility.

Leadership Survival Skills

If we are going to help first-level leaders make that shift, we need to better equip them with the necessary skills to succeed as managers and supervisors of individual contributors—what we refer to as Leadership Survival Skills.

Leadership Survival Skills

• Motivating employees
• Communicating effectively
• Defining tasks and goals
• Delegating with confidence
• Observing behavior
• Providing feedback and coaching
• Resolving conflict
• Helping others solve problems

These basic one-to-one survival skills provide first-level leaders with the foundation to move past doing the work themselves to getting the work done through others.

Go Slow to Go Fast

Some organizations assume the best approach is expediency and train their new leaders on the “what to do” and “how to do it,” neglecting to show their leaders “why it is important.”

We do need to be quick. There is an urgency to arm first-level leaders with survival skills. But, if we hurry in an effort to accelerate “speed to proficiency,” we can threaten the quality of their learning.

There is a saying in Greece, loosely translated as, “I am going slowly, because I am in a hurry.” That same sentiment applies to leadership development. If rushed, costly mistakes are made.

Clarity and Grounding

Possessing both clarity (or the “what and how”) and grounding (or the “why”) of survival skills is our best shot for equipping first-level leaders to become consciously competent.

Let’s not hurry and lose the opportunity for a richer, fuller intervention. Increase first-level leaders’ confidence by arming them with the know-how and the know-why for foundational leadership survival skills. Quickly acquiring and slowly gaining mastery of these skills early on in their career will go a long way in establishing their credibility as a leader—something they must earn in their new role.

To learn more about how to advance leadership character throughout your organization, contact Wilson Learning.

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作者介绍

Tom Roth

Tom Roth担任Wilson Learning全球首席运营官。他负责Wilson Learning全球战略发展方向和经营业绩的运营，并带领全球的市场服务团队和研发解决方案团队。同时，他还曾担任Wilson Learning美洲区的总裁。他协助全球管理团队解决员工敬业度、领导力发展、战略调整和业务转型方面的相关问题。

Roth先生在开发和实施人力绩效提升解决方案的研究上有着超过35年的经验。他是《创建高绩效团队》的合著者，并在众多商业出版刊物上发表过文章。美国、各类国际会议和客户活动经常邀请Roth先生进行演讲。他的演讲涵盖多个方面的议题，包括领导力、员工和客户敬业度、变革和战略实施等。

阅读更多， Tom Roth

Michael Leimbach

Michael Leimbach博士，担任Wilson Learning全球研究和设计副总裁。Leimbach博士拥有超过25年的专业经验，带领团队进行诊断、学习和绩效提升等方面的研究和设计。他曾带领研究销售、领导力和组织有效性；并制定了Wilson Learning的影响力评估和投资回报模型。Leimbach博士曾为多家全球公司担任研究顾问，曾在ADHR专业杂志担任主辑，并曾在ISO技术委员会TC232担任领导角色 — 制定学习服务供应商的标准。他有四本合著书籍并发表了大量的专业文章，也经常在美国和全球会议中发表演讲。

阅读更多， Michael Leimbach