You’ve worked hard for your expert knowledge.
For years, you’ve spent training, studying, and taking in-depth courses. You’ve earned and earned respect for your knowledge within the company and perhaps outside of it.
And now you’ve reached the ‘end of the line’ in your field… or so they tell you… or at least that’s how you understood it…
You know everything that’s relevant to your company at this point, and while they assume you’re keeping up to date, career advancements are no longer possible as an expert.
But there’s another option that’s been suggested to you.
Because there are still career steps to climb and major challenges to solve. And you don’t have to completely distance yourself from your field, because your skills are a bonus in this position.
You’re not completely opposed, so you think about it for a while, weigh things up… and then you accept.
Now you’re a leader, what now?
Your team looks at you expectantly, question marks in their eyes, a slight frown on their forehead. ‘They’re wondering if I can handle this,’ you think to yourself.
And you will.
Even if completely different thematic challenges are now raining down on you, and it might seem to others as if human issues are much more complicated to solve than issues in your area of expertise – which are primarily easy to classify and decide on as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ – it wasn’t and doesn’t have to be that way.
For every technical challenge, there are a multitude of possible solutions, depending on what you want to achieve.
There is rarely just one ‘right’ solution. There are some that are definitely wrong – for example, a solution that the security authorities won’t approve – and they come with many warning signs. The nice thing about such issues: it’s often obvious that they should be avoided.
When it comes to the ‘right’ topics, it is often more difficult to decide which solution is the most appropriate – both in terms of expertise and human relationships.
Will it be easy? Certainly not. Just as there are a multitude of potentially suitable solutions for technical issues, there are also numerous solutions for leadership. Many newly appointed managers are faced with a multitude of new tasks without much preparation. Often, all sorts of technical issues are accompanied by budgetary responsibility and a team that wants and needs to be led.
How can you get started? In addition to what your company provides as guidelines (company values, leadership training, leadership guidelines, etc.), by having a good idea of:
- how you want to lead,
- what is important to you, what your guiding values are (values-based leadership),
- and then using this to engage with your team to determine their needs and desires.
On this basis, you can forge a common path… I can support good coaching (sometimes called development coaching) along this path.
As a business coach, I work with many experienced and newly qualified managers on their understanding of leadership, identifying their leadership values, and implementing them as a leader, among many other topics. If you have any questions, please contact me!
More on the topic of ‘engaging’ with teams, issues, individual employees… next time. Have a wonderful pre-Christmas season and see you soon!
