I remember the week I became CEO for the first time. It all happened very quickly and unexpectedly. I was an “expert” and suddenly had to lead an organisation. I was as unprepared as I could have been. Actually, it was the best time of my life, although perhaps the organisation felt differently about it at the time.
The knowledge, skills and behaviours that help you to get the job don’t necessarily help you do it. If you’ve built your career on being the person who knows the answer, solves the problem and steps in when things get difficult, it can be surprisingly hard to realise that the new job requires a different approach. I see this in my own experience of CEO and Chairman roles, and in clients going through the same thing now.
I usually see three shifts: leading yourself, leading your team, and leading the organisation.
They’re not mutually exclusive. How you handle yourself shapes how your team experiences you. How your team performs shapes what you’re able to do.
I’ve often found limited value in leadership development delivered as a stack of modules, such as communication, strategy and marketing. The real work and learning happens around live and important issues that you are actually dealing with.
With this in mind, I’m offering a year-long programme for leaders stepping into a bigger role. All sessions are 1:1. It’s paid, not pro bono. It has two parts.
The first is eight structured sessions that work through the transition itself:
- Purpose and priorities
- The transition
- Leading yourself
- Leading your team
- Trust and influence
- Letting go
- Leading the organisation
- The leader I want to become
The second is six individual coaching sessions with no set agenda. Your CFO resigns. Your board pushes back on a call you thought was obvious. A high performer tells you they’re leaving. That’s what these sessions are for. You bring whatever’s live, and we work on it together, with experimentation and reflection between sessions where it helps.
If you’re stepping into a bigger role and think this might be useful, DM me to learn more.
John Martin 