Leadership for First time Managers

Leadership for First Time Managers

Abstract concepts on leadership found in books don't always lend themselves to easy practical applications. As a new sales manager, new to the responsibility of others, I devoured several “must reads” in quest to become a better leader. However, I had more confusion than when I started–given countless approaches to leadership I became inundated by. One approach sees leadership as a two-sided coin by making management the flip side of leadership. While I totally agree with the management-leadership coin concept, as a newbie, it was vague. Other common approaches compare leadership to a multi-level pyramid. Again, this analogy makes perfect sense, but in terms of application, it appears to propose a calculus formula, when what I needed was simple algebra. While these books provided great insights on overall organizational leadership strategy, very little is provided on the tactical level. Happy to share additional perspectives on leadership with you..

In January 2016, flying back to the US via the Dubai international airport I was going through the duty-free section as I waited to board my flight. I browsed through some magazines and wandered into the book section looking to get reading material for my long flight, but nothing piqued my attention. Then, I came across “Effective leadership” by John Adair. The main tenets of the book focused on individuals, team and task. It’s easily understood by an interlocking three circle Venn diagram, with the leader in the center. In addition, there are other core functions of the leader, such as planning, initiating, controlling, supporting, informing, evaluating.  

The Individual

The individual’s personal and growth needs are the responsibility of the leader. This involves understanding the individual in terms of personality, things that are important to them and their capabilities. Even though there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’, it is individual contributions in concert with other team members that help companies and organizations achieve their goals. Personally, this individual component is a seminal part of leadership, the team and the result. Leading individuals is usually tricky, because in my experience, you are dealing with a personality soup of egos, goals and agendas. You may not understand the individual fully, but you need to get them to align with the team and the team goals.

The Team

The team is a collection of individuals that are responsible for completing the task/goal/result. I am not going to get into whether these individuals are managed functionally or administratively by you as the leader. However, just like the individual, teams have needs, a common value system and are typically organized around completing a goal or task.  

The task

The goal/task in the business sense is what the team was put together to achieve, that is revenue, growth, customer success rating, etc. In addition to the major task/goal, there are daily goals that need to be tracked to ensure that the larger task/goal is achieved. A few other critical components around the task for the leader involves "defining" the task and the "why" for the team.

Why I recommend this book

All in all, the book provided nuggets of information in easily understood form that is applicable, not only in my professional career, but life in general. The same approach/philosophy provided can be applicable not just tactically, but also extremely effective at the strategic level.