Your Best First Steps in a New Leadership Role

Across the United States there are many people preparing to take on new leadership roles. A couple are very obvious and prominent; Senators Obama and Biden will soon have new jobs. But there are hundreds of others - new Senators, Representatives, Governors, Mayors, Town Council Members and more.

Of course over the next few months many other people will assume new leadership roles far from politics. There will be countless new supervisors, managers and people promoted to new positions of organizational leadership everywhere.

Whether they will occupy the White House, the corner office or the cubicle on the shop floor, perhaps their most important task is creating a plan for personal development in their job; an individualized leadership development program.

In some cases organizations will prescribe a process to help new leaders develop their leadership style and build their leadership skills. In most of these cases, if anything formal is available it will be traditional training. And in many cases even if this training is available, the timing is off; often not occurring very early in the new job.

A formal process is most often available for new supervisors - which makes sense as they may be in their first official leadership role. Yet, the leadership challenges all leaders face in new roles are many and varied, and don't end after that first leadership role.

Even if leaders have lots of great training available - training is only part of, not all of, the answer.

These facts lead us to a logical conclusion - you need to take responsibility for your own development and recognize that training alone won't be the answer!

The best first steps for you to take control of your development are:

1. Get a leadership assessment. This might start with a self assessment, but if you're more experienced, the best step might be a 360 assessment. 360 assessments provide a formalized way to gather feedback and create an action plan for both strengthening strengths and shoring up areas of weakness. Note - A 360 assessment is a great tool, but if you are a brand new supervisor it likely makes more sense to wait for few months to get more relevant and valuable feedback about your leadership skills and style. In any case, and at any time, a thoughtful self assessment will help you determine focus areas for growth.

2. Get coaching and mentoring. Again there are formal and informal approaches available. As a part of any supervisor training process, I recommend (at a minimum) finding a mentor to help you navigate your new challenges. You also can accelerate your growth by working with a leadership coach to help you reflect on your progress and help you map your strategies, approaches and plans for improving your leadership skills. Executive leadership coaching will further enhance your development because it gives you an ongoing leadership development process - a continual path of learning.

If you are reading this as a leader relatively new in your role, congratulations! Your opportunities to make a difference are dramatic.

In order to best lead you must have a plan not only for your work, but for your leadership growth and development. The two steps listed here will help you both build that development plan and execute it most effectively - no matter your leadership experience.

Potential Pointer: To continue to move towards your leadership potential you must have a personal development plan. Having helpful coaching based on an accurate assessment of your skills is the perfect way to develop most successfully and continually as a leader.

Digg it |  del.icio.us |  Technorati |  StumbleUpon |