Succeed in Career Transitions
Transitioning into leadership role is a challenge!
Careers do progress.
You move from being an individual contributor to a team leader. Being an individual contributor is about your intelligence, problem-solving capability, and the ability to take the initiative. While all of these skills are necessary, they are not sufficient when you make the transition. Your acquired skills like technical capabilities, your market understanding and your ability to focus on the customer can make you an architect, a CTO, but will not guide you in this new journey. Soft skills like the ability to communicate, build relations, collaboration, teamwork, development of colleagues, coaching and mentoring will take precedence over your hard skills.
The jump from an individual contributor to a team leader is much wider than what most people think.
According to Steven Howard (See Reference 1), a leadership coach estimates that “over 60% of all new supervisors and managers fail to make an effective transition from an individual contributor to their new leadership roles”
Whether you are transitioning within your company to leadership roles, or moving from middle to senior management, soft skills are key to one’s success. The problems you face are no longer confined to the 0-1 paradigm, and the answers are not bounded.
For many a problem, the answer is “it depends”. An answer to “what is an antenna gain” is simpler than “how to distribute your year bonus pot among your team”, or “build a case for a training for an employee when there is no training budget”, or “resolving a personal conflict between two squabbling team members”.
Questions like the above, can lead to you having butterflies in your stomach. Self-doubt can creep and you look at your engineering days as a blessing. This is possibly the reason why the above statistic is pertinent.
Coaching helps to steer the transition
How would it be if you had some Executive Coaching in this transition? A professional coach or an upskill coach can help you in understanding yourself, by asking questions and steering you in the right direction. The coach can help you identify what skills you have and what additional skills you need to acquire. By help you reason out with guided questions, coaching can increase self-awareness, empathy, refine communication styles, etc., each of which is a soft skill, that you will need in abundance in your new role.
My story and experience of getting coached
A similar situation arose in my career recently. I was making the move from an established, listed, market leader to an exec role in an innovative startup. Understanding where I was coming from, Salla Gantsi, my MBA classmate, offered the chance to walk me through the chances I would encounter and need to be prepared.
I jumped on the chance, as I thought it would be a good way to spar with an experienced colleague. And boy, it does make a good difference. With years of experience as a business leader, and a certificate in professional coaching, Salla has started Gantsi Consulting, a professional/executive coaching boutique.
Salla’s method is very thorough, and she helps the individual find the answers, rather than tell them what they need to do. Coaching is a self-discovery process, and you need a catalyst, Salla understands this and preps the individual with the right questions. Questions like:
· What does success mean for you?
· What are your biggest fears?
· How should you prepare for day 1?
· How will you approach situation x?
Questions like the above, will be there, irrespective of where you are coming from – moving to a new organization, moving up in your organization it doesn’t matter. You need to be prepared. A professional/executive coach like Salla, can facilitate the conversation within yourself and aid in the discovery process.
Getting coached is equivalent to getting upskilled. Don’t underestimate this. With proper coaching you will not end up in the above statistic.
Reference 1: Why New Managers, Supervisors and Team Leaders Fail To Make The Transition From Individual Contributor_Linkedin.com
Karthikesh Raju is currently working as a Senior Vice President Product Management at
TactoTek
He is a senior business professional in the intersection of 5G/Telecom, Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning) and Automotive, with over 20 years of solution and portfolio management experience.