Shifting Your Perspective

In my consulting, training, and coaching work with organizations and leaders at various levels for the past ten years one thing has become quite clear. There are many competent, bright, and dedicated managers who struggle to make the leap from a familiar role in sales or production to leading a division or company. The reasons are many and would provide plenty of grist for future blog posts. Experts smarter than myself have written extensively on this topic and leadership remains a popular, but often misunderstood subject.

One of the common sense observations I made early on in my work with managers who aspired to lead was how hard it is for persons to alter their view of the world. A successful salesperson often struggles or fails when promoted to a management role. Production supervisors who regularly beat productivity expectations don’t know how to actually set new ones (or the right ones) when they are placed in charge of the entire department. The master craftsman who knows how to build furniture stumbles badly when he or she decides to transform a hobby into a business.

Shifting your perspective begins with how you define managing and leading. Management is a one-to-one relationship and requires an ability to specialize, analyze, and tactically execute on the daily activities of the organization. Leadership is a one-to-many relationship that incorporates a broader vision and agenda.

Not-for-profit organizations are not exempt from this challenge. Perhaps that is because so many businesspersons populate their boardrooms. These persons are adept at solving problems and assessing risk. They are often less gifted at defining which problem to address or at determining what questions to ask about the current and future realities facing the organization.

The skills that serve a technician well are mostly impotent when that same crafts-person must now navigate the uncertainties of a corporate environment. The executive director who knows how to deliver a program well may be stymied when asked to document whether the agency’s clients are actually better off because of the services they are receiving.

Gaining skills to more adeptly shift your perspective is both a function of training, talent, and coaching. The managers I work with sometimes simply lack the innate ability to think strategically. It may be difficult to learn how to do this, as strategic thinking is not everyone’s talent. However, that same leader can probably hone their skills at crafting a vision, aligning people to it, and shepherding others to execute it.

For those leaders struggling in their roles perhaps a coach could assist as you navigate this new territory. Many organizations would benefit from better recruitment, orientation, and leadership development programs. Perhaps the best advice is simply to recognize that existing skills won’t be enough to ensure success when you are promoted. While your past, and its accomplishments, are important, without a shift in perspective from rearview mirror to windshield the road ahead may be a dead end.