Interesting article from Human Resources magazine
[humanresources@news.humanresourcesonline.net]. By: Lisa Cheong, Singapore
Singapore – When moving up from individual contributors to first-level leadership, one in three leaders say they struggle with having to manage former peers, according to a study by DDI.
Mark Busine, managing director of DDI Southeast Asia attributes this challenge to the change in dynamics between former peer-to-peer relationships. “As a peer, you can be a friend. And what are asked to do when you move into that leader role is that the nature of the relationship changes.” This can be especially hard especially when former peers feel that they were more deserving of the promotion as well.
But a change in dynamics isn’t the only issue at hand. Busine cites 75% of people of new leaders who say they lack the skills necessary in taking up a leadership position, part of which includes having to manage people. Busine adds that new leaders can also “feel as though they may be seen as incompetent.”
In order to avoid some of the pitfalls when moving up the career, Busine says first-level leaders need to recognise the change in dynamics between their former peers. “It doesn’t mean that you can’t be friends with your direct reports,” Busine says, but “it may be more difficult to do some of the things that you might have done with people prior [to your promotion].” For instance, new leaders now need to be more cautious about the information that they share and they also need to “respect the confidentiality that is often required at the level.”
Leaders should also spend some time with their direct reports understanding how to motivate, work and communicate with their peers, adds Busine.
Companies, on the other hand, can help new leaders ease into the transition of a new leader by helping them build skills that would be useful in their new roles like setting performance expectations skills, coaching skills, developing and delegation skills. “When leaders make the transition into the first level of leadership, they find it difficult to let go of things. If they do that [not delegate], they are going to be overwhelmed with their work and the team is unable to operate effectively and efficiently as they can. What can sometimes happen is the team feels very disempowered.”
