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Without a question the move into leadership (or even into a more advanced leadership role) is the most challenging career transition there is. Leadership calls you into an entirely new level, and asks you to grow beyond the skills and strategies that got you to where you are.
Unfortunately, few organizations provide support or training for new leaders. As a result new and even more seasoned leaders can remain under-equipped, overwhelmed, and doubting themselves as they navigate the complex and unfamiliar challenges of their role.
One of the biggest challenges of a transition into leadership is a fundamental change in how you relate to yourself and your work. Here are four of the most important mindset shifts you must embrace as a leader to bridge the gap to high-impact leadership.
Mindset Shift #1: Technical Skills → Soft Skills
In your previous role, your success and the way you were evaluated as an individual contributor centered around the technical aspects of your role. As a leader, mastery of technical skills are merely the minimum requirement for your position. Your soft skills (or “people skills”) are what will ultimately dictate the success of your results as a leader.
Many new leaders make the mistake of underestimating the importance of these skills, or assume they will intuitively “figure out” how to manage, motivate, and inspire others. It would be wise to treat these skills just like you would a technical skill — investing the required time, energy, and study into mastering them. The leaders I’ve worked with who do this are amazed at how much easier leadership becomes when they master these foundational skills.
Mindset Shift #2: Achieving → Facilitating Achievement
This can be a tough one. Similar to #1, this mindset shift asks you to leave behind a big part of your identity as an individual contributor — achievement. Instead, you must now view your role as someone who facilitates high levels of achievement by others, and helps them to maximize their potential. Your performance is now evaluated on the results of your department — made up of the individual members of your team.
It’s like you’ve been playing the bass in the orchestra, and now you’ve been asked to be the conductor. Your job is to put down your instrument, and shift your focus to creating a beautiful symphony made up of all the other musicians.
How can you bring out the best in your team? Making sure that you have the right people in the right places, identifying and leveraging their individual strengths, while helping them lean into their growth edges?
Mindset Shift #3: Solving Problems → Anticipating Problems
Another way new leaders can get themselves in trouble is getting stuck in what I call “reactive mode.” As an individual contributor, you waited for problems or projects to be given to you to work on; you simply responded to and worked on what was in front of you. Staying in reactive mode and waiting for things to respond to will get you into trouble as a leader; you’ll feel like you’re constantly chasing your tail and putting out fires.
It will also keep you from doing two key things required of successful leaders: 1) anticipating how small issues can become bigger in the future and dealing with them proactively; 2) working on the important, but non-urgent items that are crucial to long-term success.
While challenging initially, mastering this crucial shift will make you feel more prepared, in control, and strategic. Not only does this breed more confidence as a leader, it will also bring you and your team to an entirely new level of results. A Director client who made this shift, has had a 4x increase in his department’s output.
Mindset Shift #4: Doing → Delegating
It can be uncomfortable for newer leaders to step back from day-to-day operational activity, but it’s paramount to the impact you’re able to make. You have a limited bandwidth, and it’s up to you to make sure you’re using it in the best possible way. Delegating as a regular practice is a key piece of this.
One of the patterns I see with the clients I work with is that typically anywhere between 30–50% of the work they’re doing is something that could be delegated to someone else. When they start off-loading these lower level tasks, they’re amazed at the momentum they’re able to create, as well as how much better they start feeling. They now have time to dedicate to the most important, needle-moving aspects of their roles.
As you can see, there’s a clear theme here: to be successful as a leader you must let go of almost all of what’s been familiar, so that you can perform the key pieces of leadership at the highest level.
Hopefully some of these mindset shifts were helpful in shining a light on areas that may be currently holding you back from high-impact leadership. While they are simple, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re easy. You’re up against highly engrained ways of thinking and relating to your role and work that have been reinforced for most of your career.
If you’d like to fast-track your path to overcoming these challenges and bridging the gap to high-impact leadership, working with a leadership coach is a great option. They can help you identify blind spots in your leadership, shortcut your growth, and offer the support and accountability necessary to help you reach your goals faster.
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