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Effectively Handling Leadership Transitions is Critical to A Leader’s Success

August 13, 2010

By Beth Armknecht Miller, President and Executive Coach, Executive Velocity Inc

In the October 2009 edition of Chief Learning Officer, Michael D. Watkins’ article “The Eight Toughest Transitions for Leaders” outlined the top transitions that most business leaders have to navigate during their career.  The transitions are:

 
  • Promotion
  • Leading former peers
  • Diplomacy (authority versus influence)
  • New organization
  • International move
  • Organizational turnaround
  • Corporate strategy realignment
  • Business portfolio change
Watkins suggests that in order for a leader to transition successfully, a leader must be not only be capable of adapting his personal style and competencies, but he must also be able to focus on the organization’s need to build a plan for organizational growth.
 
 
IDENTIFYING NEEDED LEADERSHIP CHANGES
While this past year has brought change to a great many leaders, what personal leadership changes and transitions did you make in 2009?  How would you rate your ability to adapt both personally and organizationally?
Looking forward into 2010, here are some questions to ponder to help you with your leadership success:
 
  1. Given your experience and leadership strengths, what do you need to do more of and less of?
 
  1. What new skills do you need to learn? What is your plan to obtain these new skills?
 
  1. What adjustments do you need to make in the areas of communications, delegation, decision-making, team-building, and also with your trusted network of advisors?
The quality of the answers to these self-reflective questions is contingent on your level of self-awareness.  Since some of us are more self-aware of our strengths and weaknesses than others, I always recommend that in addition to answering these questions you use at least one other leadership assessment technique, such as the Hogan Leadership Survey. The Hogan Leadership Survey can not only add insight into needed changes, but can also provide an unbiased view of your behavior.  Another option to increase your leadership success is observational feedback which can provide you with information on how individuals view your key leadership competencies as compared to your organization’s leadership competency model.
 

PLANNING TO IMPLEMENT CHANGE

Now that you’ve identified the changes you need to make, a personal development plan needs to be created.  Creating a solid plan with SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound) goals and implementing your development plan are critical to effective leadership because unless you actually make the necessary changes you will not realize success.
Planning to implement change is often the time when I and other executive coaches are asked for assistance.  Co-developing a personal development plan with the leader and coaching the leader effectively through the necessary behavioral changes are effective to creating sustainable change.  Using an internal coach is also an effective way to create a permanent change. The advantage to using an internal coach is their organizational knowledge, while the disadvantage is the potential concern regarding confidentiality of the executive being coached.  Whether you choose an internal or external coach, coaching will provide you with a systematic and proven method to create long-term change.
 
CONCLUSION

If you are like most leaders, you and your organization have had to adapt to the economic changes that have occurred over the last 18 months.  Adapting requires both personal as well as organizational changes. Personal changes first need to be identified by you, others around you, and via an assessment tool.  Then a personal development plan should be created, and a coach identified to work with you to help you create sustainable change.