A successful manager makes decisions that affect their team, and their output, but a successful leader makes decisions that will affect the company’s future. Are you doing enough to support this transition from tactical manger to strategic leader?
The role of a manager and a leader is different. Both are concerned with output, because it is the work done by the people they manage/lead that achieves results, but the role of a manager should be to serve their team, whereas the role of a leader is more strategic. As John Stein wrote in his book Building the Pyramid: The Winning Formula Approach to Delivering Success on Your Organisation's Growth Journey, “The role of leaders is not generate more followers but to create more leaders”.
Successful managers will demonstrate some leadership potential, but in order to make the transition to an effective leader they will need to ‘let go’ of a lot of their tactical focus and develop a more strategic focus. So how can you help the next generation of leaders in your business successfully make this transition?
Here are five things you should do:
1. Help you managers to recognise that their role has changed and they will need to develop new skills I order to succeed. In particular, they will need to let go of tactical work and become more strategic in their thinking. They may benefit from attending our Executive Leadership programme to develop their skills at this stage.
2. Coaching is a core leadership skill and imperative for your potential leaders to master if they are going to be successful in implementing strategies rather than tactics.
4. Develop their communication skills. Great leaders are great communicators who inform and energise others.
5. Give them a mentor. Encourage your existing leaders to share their knowledge and wisdom with your managers who are potential leaders.
