Thinking Exercise - Succesion

Today I’d like to simply leave you all with a short thinking exercise.  If your supervisor left their position(s) tomorrow, who would take their spot?  Who’s ready?  Who could I just put in their position(s) and expect the group to function as it had prior to their departure?  This is what I ask myself often.  To be clear I don’t expect either to leave but we need to be ready if they were to leave.   

Could I put one of you in their position and if so what areas would you need assistance?  Would the team welcome and respect you as their leader?  Would your peer supervisors?  What would you do to earn their respect?  What would you do different than your predecessor?  Why?  Could you manage your manager (could you manage me)?  Who would fill your role?  How would you transition your duties and run the group?  Would you have time to do both roles?  What else do you think you would be concerned with? 

There’s really no right or wrong answers.  This is just something to get you to think.  Opportunities typically do not give the unprepared a chance to get ready.  There are rarely any timeouts.  They typically come along with little notice and often go to the person who is most prepared to take advantage of said opportunity.  Are you prepared or preparing for an opportunity should one come your way? 

It is my hope and the purpose of this whole initiative that when opportunities pop up, we will have a strong pool of powerful and ready people leaders to pick from. 

More to come -don

Getting Started

Last year all our company's First-Level leaders were required to attend the First Level Leadership Training course.   First Level Leaders are Specialist 2 (Individual Contributor 3) and Supervisors.  All of you will be working toward becoming First Level leaders. 

Attached you will find a .pdf document with the information that was covered in the above mentioned class for First Level Leaders.  <this message was formerly an inter-office email sent out and the referenced documents are considered company confidential and cannot be shared on my blog>  This and other related material can also be found on our employee portal site.  Eventually we will need to see about getting you all or a subset of you in to the formal training when it is offered.  We’ll worry about this next year.  For now, I’d like you all to become familiar with the material and the Leadership Development section of employee portal. 

While this is not required reading for you I’d highly encourage you to read it at your leisure.  It is expected that Front Line leaders know this information and act in accordance with it.  We’ll talk more about this when we meet.  For now I’d just like to make sure you are aware that there are some formal company leadership requirements that you all can knock out early.

As a reminder and a theme of what we’re doing here, you have to be ready when the opportunity presents itself.  We’re going to take the best candidate for the role and if that’s not you or you weren't ready, it may be some time before another opportunity comes about.  When that next opportunity comes there may be even more qualified people to compete with or even more requirements the position is looking for.  You have to be ready when the time comes!  Our goal with this unsanctioned program is to make sure that when an opportunity presents itself you all are:  

1. Ready for the role 

2. The best candidate for the role 

3.  You hit the ground running in the new role

I can NOT stress this enough, you have to be ready when an opportunity presents itself! 

Lastly, if you have not done so, please make sure you have done your IDP (Individual Development Plan.)  You should also make sure the career aspirations section says Supervisor if that is your next step!  Your IDP should also include some things you’re going to do to get you there.  People do look at these but more importantly, by writing down your aspirations, plans, strengths, and weaknesses you are committing to yourself (even if it’s brief) that you are doing this.   It also makes a strong statement to your leader and your leader’s leaders. 

This is your future!  -don  

Welcome to the Group

Your name was given to me by your supervisor because you have expressed desire or interest to be a people leader.  This is a huge step in your career as many people with ambitions to go this route do not ever let anyone know and thus continue to get passed over until they either give up the desire or go somewhere else out of frustration.  By stepping forward you all are already ahead of those who keep their desires or interest to themselves. 

What I’d like to do is help you all get the knowledge you will need  to be ready to assume a people leader role should the opportunity come up.  To be clear, this is in no way a guarantee you’ll get a people leader position.  I simply want you all to be ready when an opportunity presents itself. 

Over the last 10 years I’ve learned a lot in the areas of management, leadership, people leading, business acumen, and self-improvement.   Some of this (actually a lot of this) has been through learning the hard way and a lot of what I share with you will be based off these hard lessons learned.   I have managed, mentored, and helped develop a lot of different IT analyst in to people leader roles along the way.  I’ve learned a  lot from each of them during this time and I continue to learn more as I watch these leaders progress (and sometimes struggle) in their roles.  By no means am I an expert at developing others but I’m continually refining and improving my skills.  I’d like to help you all develop into great leaders and high-potential management candidates.

In the coming weeks and months we’re going to have some meetings, I’ll assign you all some work or topics to look in to, maybe a book or two to read, and we’ll have some frank discussions on topics that relate to all of this.  None of this will be mandatory and if you wish to opt out I’ll respect your decision to do so.  While I’m not a formal teacher and I make no guarantees, I believe I can help all of you better prepare for your future career success. 

I’m pretty excited for the opportunity to help you all and I’m really looking forward to it.  -don