A question from a reader:
“I am a recent post-graduate in the UK (Masters in International Relations) and want eventually to work in development. My question to you regards the best use of my skills. I feel that I am a leader and I want to put that calling to work. My research has led me to Management Consultancy as a way of learning my trade, with the view of learning the skills that an effective manager/leader needs, and then crossing-over into development work later on in my career.
“I am a recent post-graduate in the UK (Masters in International Relations) and want eventually to work in development. My question to you regards the best use of my skills. I feel that I am a leader and I want to put that calling to work. My research has led me to Management Consultancy as a way of learning my trade, with the view of learning the skills that an effective manager/leader needs, and then crossing-over into development work later on in my career.
Do you think that management consultancy would be the best way to develop my leadership skills?”
First of all, congratulations on completing your Masters! And good for you for seeking career advice from a variety of sources.
I’m glad you’ve asked this question. I love to mentor and give career advice, and this is an article that I’ve been pondering for a while, so it’s a good excuse to finally write it.
You’ve actually asked three different questions, maybe without realizing it, so I’ll provide three different answers.
Career Paths to Leadership:
I think it’s great that you’ve recognized that “leadership” is a calling, and that you already refer to yourself as a leader. Leadership is not a position, it’s the ability to enable others, and organizations, to achieve extraordinary results (That’s just my definition, by the way, there are hundreds of others).
By now, you may have already have opportunities to lead in school, your community, sports, clubs, or in church. Every one of those opportunities is a part of a lifelong curriculum of leadership development. Leadership is learned by doing, though others (positive and negative role model), sometimes hardships, and by more formal learning (books, courses, and websites like this one and others). There are no natural born leaders! Great leaders become great because they have a passion for the calling and work hard at it. They seek out and accumulate a large amount and variety of new experiences. They can then take these experiences, reflect, learn, and incorporate new ideas and behaviors into who they are.
It’s also important to have a clear idea of what leadership looks like. There have been hundred of books written on leadership – authors like Bennis, McCall, and Kotter come to mind. You can also learn a lot about leadership through biographies.
Once you know what it looks like, you need to know where you stand against the target. You do this by self-reflection, and more importantly, by continuously seeking feedback. Then, establish a written, specific plan to close the gaps.
Leadership development is truly a lifelong journey; you’ll never “get there”, but it can be an incredibly rewarding ride.
Career Paths to Management:
The principles of lifelong learning development I described for leadership would also apply to the discipline of management. This is convenient, because the best managers are also great leaders. I’d offer two additional pieces of advice on how to become a great manager:
To be a successful general manager, I believe it’s important to take a “Z” career path instead of a “T” career path. A “T” career path is a vertical progression of promotions within the same company, geography, and function. You climb the ladder, and at some point, you end up in a general management role being responsible for the function you were great at and several new functions you know very little about. These managers often fail, because they struggle with the unfamiliar, and tend to gravitate towards the one they are more adept at. Some can master this challenge, but the learning curve is usually steep and long.
A “Z” career path consists of a series of lateral moves, then a vertical promotion, another series of lateral moves, and on and on. This career path produces the most effective general managers. In order to do this, you have to be willing to accept lateral development moves throughout your career. At one company I worked at, in order to be considered for a business unit president, you had to have worked in two different geographies, two different functions, and two different industries (2X2X2). While it may take a little longer and require patience and a willingness to take risks and learn, it will increase your chances of success.
On a side note, I am concerned from what I have seen and heard about our new generation of employees wanting to have it all, and fast. While to some extent we can accelerate development, it’s sort of like trying to rush pregnancy… we may want to, but it won’t work. Time will tell to see if we end up creating a new generation of overly fast-tracked management failures.
My second suggestion would be to work for a company, or companies, that have the
best reputations for developing great leaders. Companies like GE, Pepsi, and Proctor and Gamble are some of the best general manager feeder pools (and very successful) because they pay A LOT of attention to leadership development.
Careers Paths to Leadership Development:
If you’re interested in helping others become great leaders and managers, then a career in leadership development is the right place for you.
While there are lot’s of different career options for this field, I’ve found it’s usually helpful to have been or be a successful leader-manager first. It helps you develop an appreciation for the role and challenges, and helps build credibility. So I'd say you're on the right track in wanting to "learn the trade" first, then cross over.
I’m glad you’ve asked this question. I love to mentor and give career advice, and this is an article that I’ve been pondering for a while, so it’s a good excuse to finally write it.
You’ve actually asked three different questions, maybe without realizing it, so I’ll provide three different answers.
Career Paths to Leadership:
I think it’s great that you’ve recognized that “leadership” is a calling, and that you already refer to yourself as a leader. Leadership is not a position, it’s the ability to enable others, and organizations, to achieve extraordinary results (That’s just my definition, by the way, there are hundreds of others).
By now, you may have already have opportunities to lead in school, your community, sports, clubs, or in church. Every one of those opportunities is a part of a lifelong curriculum of leadership development. Leadership is learned by doing, though others (positive and negative role model), sometimes hardships, and by more formal learning (books, courses, and websites like this one and others). There are no natural born leaders! Great leaders become great because they have a passion for the calling and work hard at it. They seek out and accumulate a large amount and variety of new experiences. They can then take these experiences, reflect, learn, and incorporate new ideas and behaviors into who they are.
It’s also important to have a clear idea of what leadership looks like. There have been hundred of books written on leadership – authors like Bennis, McCall, and Kotter come to mind. You can also learn a lot about leadership through biographies.
Once you know what it looks like, you need to know where you stand against the target. You do this by self-reflection, and more importantly, by continuously seeking feedback. Then, establish a written, specific plan to close the gaps.
Leadership development is truly a lifelong journey; you’ll never “get there”, but it can be an incredibly rewarding ride.
Career Paths to Management:
The principles of lifelong learning development I described for leadership would also apply to the discipline of management. This is convenient, because the best managers are also great leaders. I’d offer two additional pieces of advice on how to become a great manager:
To be a successful general manager, I believe it’s important to take a “Z” career path instead of a “T” career path. A “T” career path is a vertical progression of promotions within the same company, geography, and function. You climb the ladder, and at some point, you end up in a general management role being responsible for the function you were great at and several new functions you know very little about. These managers often fail, because they struggle with the unfamiliar, and tend to gravitate towards the one they are more adept at. Some can master this challenge, but the learning curve is usually steep and long.
A “Z” career path consists of a series of lateral moves, then a vertical promotion, another series of lateral moves, and on and on. This career path produces the most effective general managers. In order to do this, you have to be willing to accept lateral development moves throughout your career. At one company I worked at, in order to be considered for a business unit president, you had to have worked in two different geographies, two different functions, and two different industries (2X2X2). While it may take a little longer and require patience and a willingness to take risks and learn, it will increase your chances of success.
On a side note, I am concerned from what I have seen and heard about our new generation of employees wanting to have it all, and fast. While to some extent we can accelerate development, it’s sort of like trying to rush pregnancy… we may want to, but it won’t work. Time will tell to see if we end up creating a new generation of overly fast-tracked management failures.
My second suggestion would be to work for a company, or companies, that have the
best reputations for developing great leaders. Companies like GE, Pepsi, and Proctor and Gamble are some of the best general manager feeder pools (and very successful) because they pay A LOT of attention to leadership development.
Careers Paths to Leadership Development:
If you’re interested in helping others become great leaders and managers, then a career in leadership development is the right place for you.
While there are lot’s of different career options for this field, I’ve found it’s usually helpful to have been or be a successful leader-manager first. It helps you develop an appreciation for the role and challenges, and helps build credibility. So I'd say you're on the right track in wanting to "learn the trade" first, then cross over.
Leadership development practitioners come from all sorts of backgrounds: training, HR, academia, consultancy, and an endless variety of managerial roles. It might be more helpful to list some of the more common roles in leadership development:
Consultant
Professor
Executive Coach
Internal corporate practitioner
Author, researcher
HR, training
Entrepreneur
Blogger? (just kidding, but hey, you never know)
The paths to each one of these vary, so it really depends on where your interests lie and what you’re good at. I’d say get some leadership and development experience first, then try a few of these out until you find one that you have a knack for, a passion for, and meets your financial goals.
Consultant
Professor
Executive Coach
Internal corporate practitioner
Author, researcher
HR, training
Entrepreneur
Blogger? (just kidding, but hey, you never know)
The paths to each one of these vary, so it really depends on where your interests lie and what you’re good at. I’d say get some leadership and development experience first, then try a few of these out until you find one that you have a knack for, a passion for, and meets your financial goals.
As for income, your can be rich or poor in any of these professions. So start with passion and ability, then the riches will follow.
9 comments:
Great post, people quite often misunderstand what leadership means.
Hey Dan,
I am a long time reader of your blog, but this post made me raise several comments/observation.
Firstly, I always look suspicious at people claiming 'leadership is my calling'. Most of the time it is either boasting or wishful thinking. I would always raise question: "Why do you think it is your calling?". If you just want more power over other people, better pay, nice title, then leadership is NOT your calling.
I prefer to use the following guideline that Eastern Martial Art master use to define when one attained mastery of art: "You become master when other masters call you so."
You say: "best managers are also great leaders." I would rather disagree, in my opinion leadership is quite different from leadership. You can be excellent manager, but not a leader. The opposite holds as well.
I like Stephen Covey's distinction between leadership and management: “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.”
You even maybe not a manager in a team, but still be team leader.
Hi Dan -
Well done. Really liked your Z model and T model distinctions. Makes a ton of sense.
If I could add my two cents for your correspondent, I would add to your encouragement to look first for management and leadership opportunities in organizations. Looking back on my own pre-coaching career, so much of what I draw on today was learned not only through my own experience as a leader but through the good fortune of working with and for some very good (and even some poor) leaders.
Cheers to you and your friend from the UK -
Scott
thanks, Cherry!
Vasilij –
Thanks for being a long time reader, and I’m glad you decided to leave a comment. You’ve made a lot of good points.
Scott –
Thanks for that. Your two cents is always welcome here.
more from Vasilij (from an email, with permission):
Hey Dan,
In your latest post you wrote: "On a side note, I am concerned from what I have seen and heard about our new generation of employees wanting to have it all, and fast."
The perception is a bit wrong. There was a good article in PDF about millennials, but I can not find it now, if I find, I will send it, or give a link.
The general idea is that young people (like myself, I am 23 at the
moment) and older people tend to look at advancement from somewhat different angles.
That reminded me of my conversation with my boss - head of department regarding prospects of becoming project manager. He told me that it would take 5 years of work experience at this company to get there. I asked why, what particular skills do I need to learn and maybe it is possible to learn them faster than that, because it seemed just as arbitrary number.
So we went to clarify this point further. Eventually, it boiled down to participation in several projects in several roles (from architect to analyst and so on), seeing both failed and successful projects. From his point of view (and experience) it was pretty obvious that you need around 5 years to achieve that. For me, as young specialist, before we talked it through, it seemed that you just to 'pay your dues' - spend some time in lower level positions before you are promoted.
Therefore, I would say that unless the young person in question is being spoiled and have unreasonably high expectations, like landing a managing position right from university (then he/she really needs reality check), there is sort of mismatch between points of view, as my generation thinks of specific achievements that you need to go up, while older people sum it up and view it just as years of work experience.
Once you break it down in terms understandable to both parties, then this feeling would go away.
Leaders can't good managers and vice versa is just so much BS.
Managing anything is simply directing or controlling the use of that thing. Managing in a business environment would also entail making the most effective use of that resource or function, whether it be money, machines, material, supply chains, accounting, engineering, people or whatever.
So what is the "most effective use" of people?
For a machine, it is obvious that using it as it was designed to be used and operating it in accordance with its operating manual is a starting point. But effectively using it would also have to include maintaining it in good condition (well lubricated, appropriately fueled or provided power, well overhauled, parts replaced when worn, etc, etc).
Very few managers are unaware of the fact that if we only used the machine and never properly cared for it, the machine's capacity would degrade rather steadily over time and eventually suffer a casualty which would render it useless. So effective use includes routine preventive maintenance and corrective maintenance in order to "maintain" the machine in tip-top operating condition. The better we maintain it, the better its output. No rocket science here.
In such respects, are people any different than machines? Not at all! But what exactly is tip-top operating condition for people?
Is a tip-top condition extremely high morale or very low morale or somewhere in between? Is it a strong sense of ownership for their work or no sense of ownership? Is it using their full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment on their work or is it acting like a robot waiting to be told what to do? (Note that the experts indicate the difference between the top and bottom of this performance spectrum is about 500% in productivity.)
To be successful at maintaining machinery or a function like accounting, one must thoroughly understand that machine or function, how it works and what it needs. Is it any different for managing people? Not really.
There is one significant difference between machines and people. People have a brain completely capable of deciding what they should do, when they should do it, how they should do it and then actually doing it. And when they can't operate in this manner, they will be unwilling to unleash their full potential on their work. This would seem to imply that managing people is more about maintaining the natural capabilities of the "machine" (people) than about operating it.
So the primary goal of managing people is to cause them to unleash their full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment on their work because fully committed and highly motivated people will beat all competitors.
It turns out that leadership is the only way to effectively manage people and that ordering them around and not meeting their basic needs to be heard and be respected as the top-down command and control approach does is the worst way to manage them.
For those who want to learn more, I invite you to read these Leadership Articles starting with the article "Leadership, Good or Bad".
Best regards, Ben
Excellent and thorough response, Dan. The big takeaway for me was the Z and T models.
Rather than join the debate who or what is or is not a leader or manager, I'll add a bit of advice to your reader on self-analysis.
Can you make decisions? That will be part of your job. You need to be willing to make decisions and not just analysis.
How are your communication skills? You will have to communicate vision and expectations one on one and one on many. You will need to listen to feedback and questions.
Are you willing to confront others about performance or behavior? If not, stay in consulting or some other field where you won't have to.
Are you willing to responsible for work that you didn't do? That's part of the deal, too
Ben -
Thanks for your contribution, and for the resoruce.
Wally -
Great questions for anyone considering a leadership/management role.
Thanks.
Hi guys,
Just wanted to say thanks for the responses - all good things.
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