Becoming a Great Leader is Up to You
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You're a boss. It doesn't matter if you're a CEO or a first line supervisor or a boss who's somewhere in the middle of the org chart.
You've got two jobs. You must accomplish the mission through the team. And you must care for the people who make up your team. You know there are people who do those things surpassingly well.
Art Jones was one of them. Art was, very simply, the best supervisor I ever saw up close. He was a sergeant in a small police department. And he made being a great boss look easy.
If you're like most bosses, that's what you aspire to. But you didn't get much training when you were promoted. You probably didn't get much support during the especially trying transition from individual contributor to boss, either. And you probably get very little continuing training or help in how to be a better boss.
So if you want to get better, it's up to you. That's true even if your company gives you some training and support. The leader you become will be the result of your choices and your actions.
It doesn't happen all at once. Art sat on a panel of experienced supervisors that I used in my basic supervisory skills training. During one session a new supervisor who knew his reputation asked him how he got so good at being a supervisor.
Art's response: "A little bit every day for twenty years."
That's what you're in for. If you want to be a better boss, you have to take control of your own development. And you have to be in it for the long haul. Here are some things that will help you get better, faster.
Make development a conscious effort. You'll get better from experience alone. But you'll develop more effectively if you think about what you should be learning and how to learn it.
Make the most of the resources available. Use the resources that your company, community college, or trade association offer to help you develop.
Master the art of getting and using feedback. Learn to critique your own performance. Get feedback from your team members and your peers. Use coaches to accelerate your development.
Develop the art of choosing information sources that will help you improve. Use business books, business news and magazines, blogs and podcasts that ramp up your knowledge and stimulate your thinking.
Boss's Bottom Line
Your leadership development is your responsibility.
Check out the following related posts
Leadership Development: Big Company Programs and You
Leadership Development: Getting the Most from a Class
Leadership Development: Crafting Your Personal Development Plan
Leadership Development: When to hire a coach
Leadership Development: How to hire a coach
Leadership Development: How to hire a coach
The Perfect Leadership Book for You
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
Categories: leadership development
Tags: Leadership Development
Wally,
Nice post! I particularly like the point about mastering the art of getting and using feedback. It is so important to use feedback as one grows in their self-awareness as a leader/boss. I also agree with you that it is up to the individual to be responsible for their own leadership development. If the company is willing and able to support them, that's terrific; if they are not, that is no excuse to not get the development on your own somehow, someway.
Well done!
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Thanks, Bill. Without feedback, you only get better by accident. That's why feedback is the breakfast of champions.
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Wally--
I enjoyed your description of the police sergeant. Says much in a few words. And I appreciate your message that practice is at the heart of becoming a leader. It's not simply lofty ideals and vision, but a lot of consistent, well focused effort.
All the best
Michael
www.workengagement.com
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Thanks for the kind words, Michael. There's very little out there to alert someone who's considering management that they're really looking at a life choice. The research on mastery is certainly relevant. If you want to master the domain, a couple of classes and a motivational book won't do it. And it won't happen by Tuesday, either. Instead, you grow in your mastery day by day and you grow faster if you apply conscious and diligent effort to the process.
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Great post. Reminds me of the quote: All men are self made, only the millionaires admit it.
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Good point, David. You, in turn, reminded me of something my dad used to say: "Being a self-made man is not so bad, unless you also worship your creator."
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"So if you want to get better, it's up to you. That's true even if your company gives you some training and support. The leader you become will be the result of your choices and your actions."
Absolutely!
For so many people the promotion to "boss" seems to be the destination rather than the start of the journey. I have had so many conversations with people about this and they are often surprised when I ask what they are going to do to become great bosses.
I have recently been coaching a group of students who are managers in the construction sectoron a university based programme which runs over the period of 12 months which asks them to reflect on their management practice under 9 categories. Their final reports on this "workbased learning" showed how much they believed they had improved in their management role and what they plan to do next. A turning point for them now that they have taken responsiblity for their choices and actions!
I will point future students to this post
Thanks Wally!
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Thanks for adding to the discussion, Jackie. That program sounds really interesting. Maybe you could share the nine categories. It would give readers a structure for analysis.
I wrote this post as the anchor point for several posts about different of leadership self-development. I'll be picking the brains of guest experts like Dan McCarthy, who has some helpful thoughts on designing a your own leadership development plan. All those posts will link back here and we'll be adding links to all of them to this post.
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Happy to!
The programme is run by Edinburgh Napier University and the students get a graduate certificate in Management Practice
http://www.napier.ac.uk/randkt/edinburghinstitute/Pages/EdinburghInstitute.aspx
Managing Self
- your job as a manager including what do managers do, leadership
- personal effectiveness and wellbeing including managing emotions, recognising stress, delegation and time management
-effective communication - written and verbal, influencing
Managing Interactions
-managing in a business context including strategic planning and cost controls
- recruitment- from identifying vacancy through to appointment
- managing change - planning, implementing and negotiating
Managing through others
- motivation and managing performance
- promoting professionalism in the team
- teambuilding and coaching
The students attend a workshop on each topic and choose 2 from each group on which to write a plan, put into action and finally submit a report.
Would be interested in your comments about content - what you like, what is missing - to pass to the team.
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Thanks for sharing that, Jackie. I think it's a great addition to the discussion.
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Excellent thoughts and ideas. Also, don't be afraid to ask entry level staff about their challenges and difficulties on a regular basis. Learn from them as well. Make sure they have the tools necessary to do their jobs. You cannot be an effective leader unless you understand the hurdles that exist at all levels of your business.
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Those are good points, Christopher. The great thing about entry level folks is that they see the world differently than you do, but you have to talk to them find out what they see.
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Abso-rootin'-tootly, Wally. And, because we're the boss of ourselves, leadership development of "self" is our responsibility as well. Employees and bosses alike can and should be responsible for their personal and professional development.
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Thanks for a great comment, Kevin, and for adding a new word to my vocabulary!
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Could not agree with you more. More people and getting worse by the way are managing up and worry too much about their own careers. Until leaders of organizations hold managers and directors responsible (with some teeth, ie compensation, future promotions etc) for developing the people they serve we will continue to face a huge leadership gap. My thanks to BJC who after 23 years still continues to be a great help not only to me but to other associates in developing future leaders in our organization. it is a shame he has never really been recognized for his contribution. But as a true leader he cares not about the recognition of his management but of folks like me who thank him routinely for all he has done for us.
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Seems to me like you've gone some of the way toward recognizing BJC by telling your story here. Perhaps he and others will see what you've written. That may start the recognition ball rolling. Thanks for sharing your experience.
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Wally -
I LOVE this post! Especially the "a little bit every day for 20 years" story.
Nice job.
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Thanks, Dan. I think that's how real development happens, a little at a time over a long time. The core idea in "deliberate practice" is that you can accelerate development and improve the final results if you are "deliberate" about choosing what you develop, getting feedback, and adjusting.
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"The leader you become will be the result of your choices and your actions."
This quote by far is inspirational! Great post!
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Thanks so much for those kind words.
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Great post Wally! I especially liked your first suggestion "make development a conscious effort." In order to progress forward in any aspect of life you need a plan. By thinking about what you should learn and how to learn it you will be ahead of game and hopefully grow a quicker rate! Thanks Wally!
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Thanks for the kind words, Matthew. Companies who do the best job of leadership development choose to make it a part of what they pay attention to. The same should be true for individuals. Otherwise you're trusting to luck.
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I LOVE the point about mastering the art of getting and using feedback. My hope is that more managers take it to heart in 2010!
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Thanks, Lara. Getting and using feedback is something very few of us do naturally and well. Which means it takes conscious work. For myself, I've found it works best when I follow the habit of after-action critique, but even so, at least one development project a year involves learning to get and use feedback better.
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I enjoyed this post - neat & concise and not full of management jargon!
When I started out leading people (in the military) I was always told to evaluate my superiors with a critical eyes. Note, formally if neccessary in a notebook etc, on a regular basis what was good and what was bad about particular individuals. These ideas then built up over time to produce a very useful 'top tips' list of things to try and emulate and just as many things to avoid!
Simple, low-tech and very effective.
Great blog - keep it up & thank you.
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Thanks, Pete. You make a good point. Learning systems don't need to be high tech or complex to work well. I learned to keep a self-critique notebook when I was in the Marines. I think many of us learned our basic leadership lessons while serving our country.
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Great post! You are right about leadership train in most cases is fully a “get it your self” training. I think that mind set is true for any that want to be success full, as Brian Tracy says ‘you are CEO of You inc. where you sell your services’. If you want to learn some thing you need to take the actions to do so. That is just even truer with leadership, and is a never stopping training; if you want to be your best you can never stop learning.
That is why I started my leadership website Your Effective Leadership as a place for leaders to help each other grow in their leadership by sharing what they have learned.
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Thanks for those kind words, Eric. I wish you well with your new site.
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leaders are made not born.
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I'm with Dan -- the long term view is excellent. Great post.
-Meg
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Hi Wally,
Your post was very timely for me. As someone who offers leadership workshops I worry about whether the learning outcomes I see in my clinics are reinforced and supported back at the office.
I often feel that somehow I am still responsible for their leadership development after the clinic is over. On the other hand I also get the impression from some of my participants that once the workshop is finished so is their responsibility in the learning process.
You are right. These are grown ups in charge of other grownups so surely they should be able to take on the responsibility and initiative for their own continued self-growth.
I have read Dan's post about individual leadership development plans and I am looking forward to reading your upcoming series. It will be something I can point my workshop participants to and I am sending this post off to my latest group. Thank you!
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Thanks for the comment and the kind words, Laura. Some years ago, I came across some research by Marshall Goldsmith that gave me insight into what can happen after a program ends. Here's a quote from my post, "Leadership Development: Getting the Most from a Class."
"Remember this. Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan studied the progress of 88,000 managers who had been to leadership development training. The people who returned from the training, talked about it, and did deliberate work to apply their learning were judged as becoming more effective leaders. The ones who didn't showed no improvement."
Now I tell class participants about the research and point out that since they're all adults, no one will be stopping by to check on whether they talk about what they've learned and try to apply it. That means they have a choice. They can either treat the program as an investment of time or a waste of time. It's all up to them.
One more thing, if you're involved in leadership development, you need to subscribe to Dan McCarthy's Great Leadership blog.
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As with everything- you get out of it what you put into it. You are right- most bosses don't receive training to be a leader- although some are born with the ability to do it well. Some great insight- really enjoyed reading it. I have passed it along to those I know already lead well & those that could use a nudge to get on the horse.
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Thanks for the kind words, Gina. I have to disagree with something you said. You can put the same effort into different activities and get vastly different results. Some small investments like identifying good roles models and maintaining a journal where you critique your own performance yield surprisingly high performance improvements. In terms of day-to-day behaviors, touching base a lot is a simple behavior that sets up the possibility for astounding benefits.
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