As a leader, especially one transitioning from a manager of a group or team to a leader of a department or organization, there are ten essentials to create and maintain to succeed in your new role.
The way you execute these ten essentials will be unique to each leader. As we have seen in many organizations, systems, businesses, NGOs, and non-profits around the globe, if you are not tending these ten things, your organization will be wobbly – and not like a Weeble. Your people and organization will be uncertain, unclear, and less effective in ways you will not know until it is too late.
Number One: Vision.
Have a long-term vision, even if you can only see into the next six months. Know where you want to go, and what skills you want to build, define what would be the best contribution of your role in the company, and ask your boss or board to define the one or two big rocks to move this quarter, year, or term. Have each team member create their own visions and share in a meeting specifically designed for people to share their visions, not as a sidebar or fit into another slot.
Number Two: Safety.
Psychological safety is critical to any organization. While it is not your role to ensure the psychological safety of everyone in your organization, it is essential you have thought about safety, what it means to you, what you will adhere to as illustrated in your vision, and how you will work with unsafe behaviors. Safety builds trust. Unsafe can be felt and seen. People don’t usually share when they feel unsafe, some often don’t know why. It is your job to notice, inquire, and set standards for what it means to uphold safe behaviors.
Number Three: Role.
Remember you are not the role. I will say this again. You are not the role. You are the person in the role. You are replaceable. Your role is maybe not. Many people tie up their personal identity with the role they play in an organization. Though there may be similarities to who you are and the role you play – you may need to be organized for your role and you may already be an organized person, you are not the only organized person that can fill the role. Given your personality and inclinations, you must still perform the role. Regardless of whether you are a driver and lead from the front or a servant leader and lead from behind, you still have a role to play and often you must build the skills to lead outside the comfort zone of your identity to fill the needs of the role.
Numer Four: Financial Hygiene.
Know your financials. They are your responsibility. If your financials are off, you must focus, uncover why, and hire the people to help you right the ship. You need your teams and their teams’ financials to roll up to yours. Financial reporting must be standardized and understandable to the entire group and those hierarchically above you. Your financial decisions must match the organizational culture. If you work at a non-profit organization but have spent much of your career working in for-profit companies, you must assess what you think is necessary to align with the organization’s needs or principles. Or you must craft and share the story that accounts for any discrepancy.
Number Five: ROB (Rhythm of Business).
Plan and track all the events, reporting, culture needs, and financial duties down to the day, week, or time of year they are due. Use this calendar to plan your year. If your budget is due in December, put a meeting on the ROB for budget review in March, June, and October with a few more in November to refine and review the budget before you share it with others. Your Rhythm of Business (ROB) does not have to look like anyone else’s. And, you must have one. Even if you are not a planner and think the ROB is constraining, you and more importantly your people need an ROB to follow and plan the scope of their work.
Number Six: Meetings.
Think about and plan meetings. In most organizations, people put the meeting on the calendar and then show up on the day of the meeting – whether it is a weekly staff meeting or a quarterly all-hands – and ask what are we talking about today. If you are lucky, someone populates the agenda for you. These agendas are often task completion checklists and lack vision and energy. Every meeting you have in your organization drives culture, connection, disconnection, clarity, or confusion. If you want to have a stellar culture, go out of your comfort zone to design, and plan exceptional meetings. Exceptional meetings do not have to cost money, though you must spend time designing them. What we see time and again, the more personal risk you take to create something engaging and unusual but effective, the more likely the meeting will deliver more than hoped-for results.
Number Seven: Agendas.
As I said above, the ROB often drives the tasks on most agendas. The budget will be discussed at the budget meeting. Staff meeting is for pressing or emerging issues on the team or in the organization. Your job with agendas is reflection. Your agenda items drive the conversation. Whenever is a good time for you to think, take a moment, make a cup of tea or coffee, and jot down your highlights, your concerns, your hopes, and questions for the team members. What conversations do you want or need to have? Share your thoughts on the agenda before your meeting and then structure the meeting in a way that opens up the conversation.
Number Eight: Feedback.
People cannot grow with once- or twice-a-year feedback. Feedback is essential in every organization. It is also the most feared or joked-about process. You may be a person who thrives on any kind of feedback. Or you may disdain giving or receiving feedback. Regardless, it is your role – whether you like it or not – to pay attention and offer people actionable, in-the-moment feedback that helps them grow. Build feedback culture into your vision. Standardize and drive the type and method of feedback you wish to receive and what you will provide for others. A common feedback language or formula is essential to create a culture of safety. Build feedback into your meetings. You, the leader, need to show and teach how to deliver optimal feedback to drive the bottom line and toward your vision.
Number Nine: 1-on-1’s, 2-on-1’s, 3-on-1″s.
Relationships are the key to any successful venture. We have seen many people neglect to meet one-on-one with their team to preserve their precious time. Others put off meeting one-on-one because they have a conflict stirring and are not sure how to manage the disruption. Waiting creates churn. Waiting deepens the gulf in a relationship. Maintaining 1:1’s with your team and those you wish to influence is critical to building trust. Have a standing agenda for these meetings and then leave space for open dialogue. Standing items might be feedback, financials, team challenges, or anything else critical to their role’s ability to accomplish the work. When needed, schedule two-on-ones or three-on-ones. Invite members of the team who have disagreements, need a conversation, or have alternate data. This brings people into the same “room,” offers a third party for psychological safety, and helps eliminate confusion and misalignment.
Number Ten: Reviews.
Construct a method of offering mini-reviews throughout the year. This way the formal review will not come as a surprise or be feared. Do not wait for the six-month or annual process. Maintain a OneNote or another tracking method with data about your people. Write actions and words you observe in 1:1’s, in team meetings, or in email when the person is on or off track with their goals or vision. If you hear feedback through the grapevine, ASK if you can share what you heard with your person or team – we call this positive gossip. Publicly note review dates on your ROB. Ask people to review you. Tell them what skills you hope to build this year and what feedback you might like to receive. Ask them what skills they are building and what feedback they would like to receive. Make reviews engaging by reflecting before the meeting to be prepared and not waste people’s time.
Conclusion
You are paid to lead your organization. This is your role. You have deliverables and those are important. The way you go about delivering is as important as the result. In the heat of delivery, we often forget that people function best when treated as humans, not roles. If you establish patterns to engage your team before delivery crunches, you deposit money in the emotional bank account that pays dividends later. May you be successful. Invite perspective if you need support.
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