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3 tips for success in your new leadership role

You’ve been promoted – congratulations! It’s your first leadership role, and it is something you have wanted for some time.

Nearly half of all leadership transitions fail

You are beginning to realise that there are things to plan for as well as celebrate. There is a shocking statistic that nearly half of all leadership transitions fail.

Take a look here at what McKinsey Consulting found out in their research last year:

We can see that leadership transitions can be both high risk and potentially very costly for both organisations and employees. It’s worth looking at what ‘good practice’ should include to ensure that your own transition – from that of a manager to a leader – is a success.

Now you have gained that promotion, you may find you have mixed feelings too. You may be remembering that you really enjoyed being an expert, and now you are really not so sure about what is involved with this leadership stuff, or how you will personally benefit from the change.

Leadership skills
New Leadership tips

At STL, we believe that becoming a leader is not about what you know (your expertise), but how you see things (your perception), followed by how you relate (emotional intelligence).

We believe that the first step in becoming a leader is the change in your perspective and perception.

With many different possibilities on how you see your new role, you may have many questions:
• What is different for me and what stays the same?
• What does my manager expect?*
• How do I make the change and get support?
*You may want to look at our top tips for managing upwards.

Leadership Vs Management

Leadership feels different from management. Here are our tips for what you need to do:

1. Focus on direction.
Your success is no longer about your own task or activity. It is not about operational targets or performance as a solo. Now you need to prioritise and communicate purpose, direction and achievement of the team goal.
2. Work with emotion.
Leaders make it OK for team members to talk about what they think and feel. Developing and fine tuning your Emotional Intelligence now is key. You new requirement is to build and deliver results through relationships.
3. Motivate the team.
Without learning to excite, enthuse and motivate your team, delegation is a chore. Synergy and exceeding customer expectation is something you can best achieve with and through your team.

There are many differences about being a leader and differences in the approach and work involved.

You may like to take a look at this short HBR video clip, with an INSEAD professor describing some of her frustrations in her own transition. What resonated with you?

Transitioning to become a leader may not be easy but with support, it is possible.

Remember our top three tips

Remember our top three tips of focusing on direction, working with emotion and motivating the team. This will be a good foundation for your success.

PS. If you want more to read, here are some more tips for leading well

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Achieving Account Management Excellence

What DO Excellent Account Managers do differently?

 

There’s account managers who seem to just about do enough in terms of generating profitability. And then there is successful Account Managers who are critical to their business and the customers they serve.

This sounds familiar with account management teams across the responsible for developing account managers….so we’re asking the question….

Just what is it that they do differently?

 

What behavioural characteristics do they demonstrate that makes them the Account Management supremo?

There are several key traits that make up what an excellent Account Manager does and we thought we would share what we’ve noticed during our experience of working with account management teams.

COMMUNICATION EXPERTS

The great account managers will continually maintain all channels of communication and will often find themselves making dozens of calls in a day.

And it’s not just keeping their key contacts and stakeholders updated and informed as to what’s going on, but also suppliers and project managers. Excellent Account Managers will never fully ‘switch off’, they’re always available and will religiously check email and remain in the loop, even during periods of annual leave.

How do they do this? Simply put, they are masters of communication.

Superior account managers embrace the latest technology. They use multiple platforms to communicate in a versatile way with their client.

ORGANISATIONAL EXCELLANCE

They call on their organisational skills and are usually known for their ability to do so. Excellent account managers also can organise on a small or a large scale whether it’s a conference call with several parties, a business meeting or an event and their efficiency at organising these is always noticeable and evident. Their productivity is high and they can always call on the right support for the right customer project.

FORMING RELATIONSHIPS

A great account manager possesses excellent relationship skills. They will constantly strive to develop their personal relationships.

These do not happen overnight and are perfected over time and then used to open and establish what will become a long-lasting relationship. The adage that we’ve all heard goes ‘people buy from people’…. there may be an element of truth to that, however people buy value and quality based on a relationship of trust.

Great account managers take the time to understand their contacts, their business, their motivators, their issues, their headaches and what keeps them awake at night and will work on solutions…..they research tirelessly so they are prepared and never take things for granted. Great account managers care for their customers and will very often go the extra mile to ensure deadlines are met.

Another essential component in relationship building is that recommendations are given for new business opportunities emerge which can benefit the account manager.

 

THEY RESPECT BUT ALSO CHALLENGE

Account Managers who are more successful than other account managers  usually manage larger spending accounts and with added responsibility to their customers. They will not be afraid to tell a large spending account that they are potentially not making the right decision, or not selecting the right product or service. They will then present more options and see through to a solution.