Five Rules Successful First-time Leaders Follow

As a consultant and coach, I often work with groups of first-time leaders who have risen from middle or senior level managerial positions. One of the questions I get asked quite frequently is about how to develop a single vision within the organisation, and what the leader needs to do to make sure that everyone in the organisation shares the vision of the leader.

My answer to the question is a ten second video clip of the Windows 7 advert which they have all seen. Everyone from the new-learner, amateur user to the expert, all take credit for developing this piece of software. Whether or not this actually happened is another matter; but the advert has a powerful message for those leaders who think that it is their vision that everyone else will need to share. A vision needs to emerge organically, with the leader playing the role of the chief architect, facilitator, as Bill Gates likes to call himself.

In the good old days, the industrial-age leaders developed vision for their companies and handed it down to their managers and workers to bring the vision to reality. In modern organisations, the leaders are managing an inverse pyramid where the customers are at the base (top of the inverted pyramid), managers/middle management facilitating learning and the CEOs absorbing, assimilating and developing knowledge. In the old style, the leaders, CEOs sat at the apex of the pyramid and were supposed to ‘know’ everything, and the lower down the line was the delivery apparatus, and further down the line at the base of the pyramid sat the customers – you consumed whatever you were served. This has radically changed now – leaders are no longer the repository of vital knowledge about the business. Today’s CEOs operate with much less knowledge of their customers than what the frontline staff or managers have. They need to listen more, learn more (from people below them), and make sure that they create an environment where learning ‘developed’ at the bottom reaches the top.

A vision is something the leaders help develop, working with their frontline staff, customers and managers; it is not something they hand down anymore for other to follow. Leaders of today know that knowledge about the business sits across the organisation, and the leaders also know that although the strands of knowledge exist across the organisation, it is their job to pull these together into a coherent whole. It is their job to bring the strategic thinking that creates the synergy when all the different strands are brought together. Leaders are paid to THINK things your subordinates have not thought through.

I sum up discussion on my 10-seconds video clip with five key messages for first-time leaders:

1. Think of all your staff as ‘neurons’ in the organisation’s brain. You need capture all that exist in their brains. You must not ignore a single neuron.
2. Think! Think! Think! Remember, as a leader, you are paid to THINK! They need to see in you a strategic thinker whose thoughts are simple and powerful.
3. Present your thoughts in a way that they think your thoughts are theirs – you helped them articulate it! And these thoughts will form the vision.
4. If you think your people do not understand your thoughts and vision, you are not communicating effectively. The fault is in you.
5. Things will go wrong, and when they do, ask you people for feedback.

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