You Got Promoted. Now What? How to Close Your Leadership Gap
I had a conversation with a client recently that’s been on my mind.
Let’s call her Andrea. She’s a newly promoted manager at a tech company. She is incredibly smart, hardworking and dedicated to her job.
But Andrea is struggling!
Why?
Well, it isn’t because she lacks the capability or because she doesn’t care.
The reality is that no one ever taught her how to lead!
She got promoted and was just expected to excel as a leader!
The Problem with How We Promote People
Unfortunately, what happened with Andrea happens everywhere.
She was an excellent individual contributor. She crushed her targets, delivered great work and impressed her boss. So, she was promoted!
Yet suddenly she’s managing five people with zero leadership training. Sound familiar?
This is a chronic issue that I see every single day. Many organizations have ill-prepared leaders trying to figure it out as they go.
The skills that made you successful as an individual contributor are not the same skills that you need as a leader.
Being great at sales doesn’t automatically mean you know how to coach a sales team.
Being an amazing analyst doesn’t mean you know how to delegate effectively to other analysts.
Being a top performer doesn’t mean you know how to give feedback, manage conflict or develop a high performing team.
Leadership requires completely different skills and behaviours and the skills you need change at EVERY level of leadership.
What Leaders Need to Learn
If you are a people manager, you need to learn how to:
- Coach your team members effectively
- Develop the skills and competencies of your people
- Build a high-performing team culture
If you are a senior leader, you need to learn how to:
- Build and align your senior team
- Lead and manage organizational change
- Execute strategically across multiple priorities
These are skills most people don’t have naturally.
But the good news is that you can learn and develop them!
Each level of leadership requires new capabilities.
What’s Your Leadership Gap Right Now?
Take a minute and ask yourself: What skills do I need at my current level of leadership that I haven’t fully developed yet?
Here is what I recommend to close your leadership gaps:
- Identify your specific gap. Where are you struggling? What feels hard right now?
- Create a development plan. What do you need to learn? Who can help you? What resources do you need?
- Get support to implement it. This might mean working with a coach, taking a leadership program or finding a mentor.
- Practice. Leadership is a skill. The more you practice, the better you’ll get.
Don’t wait for your organization to invest in your development.
Take ownership of becoming the leader that you want to be because your team deserves a leader with the right skills to support them and you deserve to feel confident in your role!
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