Fresh off of the coldest July since AD 85 here in the Chicago-area, the weather is finally warming a bit and I’m breaking out the Summer Shorts for this Friday Fare post here at Management Excellence. (Since my wife didn’t get it either, this means that today’s post is going to include brief snippets instead of my usual lengthy essays. Get it…summer shorts! Hey, I thought it was a cute play on words.)
A note from Art: My recent post, “Things I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me When I Became a Leader,” seemed to strike a familiar chord for many. I’m thrilled that it struck a chord for someone that I’ve invited to guest post for quite awhile and until now, couldn’t quite convince to put pen to paper. A good colleague and friend, Joe Zurawski, joins us today with his thoughts on early leadership missteps and lessons learned the hard way.
One of the rude awakenings for leaders promoted from within a team is the uncomfortable recognition that the easy camaraderie of the pre-promotion days immediately gives way to an awkward distancing of relationships.
Congratulations on your promotion. Oh, and you’re no longer part of the gang
Resistance shows up in many forms in our daily lives. It’s what keeps us from eating properly, working out regularly, taking that leap into a new job that we’ve been dreaming about for years, and pushes off to some unknown point in the future, the writing of the book that nearly everyone says that they have in them. If none of those examples fit, think of something in your life that you know you should do, but haven’t found the time or had the discipline to do it. That’s resistance.
Resistance shows up in leadership settings and in the workplace in many forms:
It is always fun to be part of the Leadership Development Carnivals, because it gives me a chance to hang out with some very accomplished leadership bloggers and thought leaders. I learn something of value from these great professionals every time, and I never mind that I benefit from being in their company!
This month’s issue of the Leadership Development Carnival is hosted at Intentional Leadership, the home of Mary Jo Asmus, one of my must-read favorites for her wisdom, insights and the fact that she exudes professionalism and that “all around great person” in everything that she writes.
I had a chance to chat with a number of recent and not so recent additions to the ranks of unemployed professionals, and to a person, they reported experiencing a range of emotions, most particularly, an uncomfortable feeling of helplessness, and in one case, an increasing sense of futility.
The individuals also agreed that the fight for economic and mental survival is a two-front war….taming the internal demons and turning what one described as creeping lethargy into action.
We discussed coping strategies, and here’s the list of very compelling suggestions offered up for anyone uncomfortably thrust into the role of formerly employed.
Note from Art: this one’s with a little help from my friends. I’ve been working a great deal with first-time leaders recently (my favorite groups!) and I posted a tweet to the extremely talented group of great people that I follow on Twitter asking what they wish someone would have told them when they started out in their leadership careers. Here are a few of their insightful thoughts with attribution, commingled with thoughts of my own.
Getting called in front of the board or the senior executives of the firm can be an intimidating experience for many younger and even some experienced professionals. No amount of paper or pixels on screen will compensate or adequately explain root cause problems or satisfy someone that and your ideas to fix what’s wrong will work. The best salesmanship is to avoid attempting to cover-up blemishes and to shoot straight on issues and next steps.
My biggest mistakes as a leader occurred as a result of spending way too much time attempting to change two people. I was young, new to the formal leadership scene and convinced that with my help and guidance, these two talented individuals would certainly shed their dysfunctional and toxic behaviors.
Wow, was I wrong!
One of the things that I truly love about this time we are living and working through is the front-row seats that we all have to some fascinating experiments in strategy. Things happen so quickly and with such widespread coverage in today’s world, that it often looks and feels like a strategist’s living laboratory on Miracle Gro.
