Letting Go Of Past Roles
If you don’t let go of your old job, you’ll find yourself back in it sooner than you think!
One of the most difficult concepts about moving up in an organization is the need to leave an old job behind, especially if you are promoted within your own company. There is one common thread as we move from a technical expert to manager, from manager to a department head, and then progress to a leader over multiple departments, C-Suite, and finally CEO….take the lessons you’ve learned with you, but not the job responsibilities.
We are most comfortable with things we already know, and we often gain confidence from being able to perform desirable tasks that we have previously been rewarded for. So how do you ensure your new CEO role isn’t a Career Ending Opportunity? Or, your new promotion doesn’t end with a “goodbye” package and the need to find a job that capitalizes on your prior skills?
Fallacy #1: It’s faster to do it myself.
After being named “interim” General Counsel, I knew the role was different as were the expectations for success. Previously rewarded for being a technician and good lawyer, often as an individual contributor, I now needed to perform as a coach, establish and lead toward a vision for the larger organization, and improve the value proposition for a number of critical “cost center” organizations. The task was daunting.
What wasn’t daunting? When a favorite colleague from IT showed up one day to ask for help with a contract that had skidded into the ditch. We discussed his situation at length, and he even gently suggested that he’d take this new strategic direction back to someone on my team. “No need,” I said, holding up one hand while already editing the document with the other. “I can do it faster than you can communicate this with someone else.” The key failure here was that it was a novel deal and arrangement, and one that could have offered several members of my team a new skill. The worst part of this story came when the CEO, aka my new “interim” boss, arrived in my office to strike up a conversation. “What are you working on?” he asked, falling into a chair after the long day. “Just this contract for X,” and as the words left my lips, I watched his face crumble. Why did he look like I had just insulted Bruce Springsteen? He seemed disappointed that I wasn’t elevating into the new role in the way he expected me to. I was playing at the wrong level, doing the exact thing that he did not need or want from a member of his executive team.
In the end, I still got the job, but only because I realized my mistake, quickly learned from it, and changed my focus.
Reframing Fallacy #1: Immediate time savings does not offer lasting efficiency.
Just because something is faster the first time, doesn’t mean it will lead to long-term efficiencies that exceed the one time savings. For example, if a leader can help everyone on the team get 5% more effective, or take on an additional 5% of the total workload, that time savings will significantly outpace the quick completion of a single task.
In kinder terms, don’t rob your team of the opportunity to learn. And when you catch yourself doing it, talk openly about your mistake and use it as a teaching opportunity (in addition to the skill development you tried to steal). Give your crew a chance to fail safely, and if you have to wait an extra day for the result the first time, isn’t the organization better for it?
Fallacy #2: No one else can do this as well as me.
This is likely not true, but successful and ambitious people have a hard time realizing it.
Also, this fallacy often goes hand in hand with #1, and stems from never giving others on the team the chance to show what they can do. Usually, people will surprise you with what they can accomplish. But even if your team fails the first time, the development that they will receive far outweighs that short term pride you feel in your own job well done.
Reframing Fallacy #2: The goal is to develop the team to be better than you are.
The key is in the definition of what a successful outcome is. If there is no one on your team that is quick enough or experienced enough to create a result as well as you did in the role, THAT is the problem you have to solve. The best measure of a great leader is the selection and development of a great team. This is done by creating and offering opportunities for growth, offering specific and valuable feedback, and providing task-related suggestions without laying out detailed “how to do this” instructions. The ultimate marker of successful leadership is to render yourself obsolete. Only then are you truly ready for the next challenge.
Fallacy #3: I HAD to do it…my old job is still vacant.
The most common challenge to letting go of an old job is when the organization has not yet named a replacement for your prior role. Professionals often feel “guilted” into continuing to wear two hats, often for months, losing opportunities to grow into their new role, and getting increasingly frustrated by the workload created by keeping their old one.
Reframing Fallacy #3: Succession planning and talent development is within your control.
Even if you cannot control how fast staffing decisions are made, you can control what YOU do. One solution that I recommend for individuals at all levels in an organization is to do their own succession planning. When I ask “who is your successor” to someone that isn’t already an executive, I usually get a reaction akin to a dog being shown a card trick. But even in the most junior ranks of the organization, developing talent and succession should be part of everyone’s job description. As author Robert Heinlein once said, “when one teaches, two learn.” So even in a lower level role, teaching others how to do your job shows that you are confident in your abilities, can lead to creative improvements to process and the results themselves, and allows the teacher to learn new perspectives. In addition, there is no better way to spotlight your own leadership skills.
So, bring someone along with you instead of waiting for a replacement candidate to be found.
Fallacy #4: My team members will like and respect me more if I act like I am one of them.
Leadership is not a popularity contest. When you ascend in the organization, you are being asked to accept additional and often vastly different objectives. The most successful leaders are usually likable, not liked. As Margaret Thatcher once remarked, "If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing."
How does this translate into day-to-day reality? Having grown up in IT, I saw technicians promoted to management regularly. Yet, they continued to get certifications, to focus on proving that they could write code, test, and debug, and to be pals with everyone on the team. Many of them were terrified that their subordinates, who were very recently peers, would stop respecting them if they became “non-technical” management, as though that was a dirty word. However, the ones that embraced the next level skills of execution, integration planning, project fundraising, internal and customer communications, and staff development were able to recruit the best talent, and achieve the most success by any standard. And they didn’t necessarily start out with these skills. Each successful technician seemed to borrow approaches from those around them, including partnering with skilled employees in other areas of the company, such as communications, to supplement the areas they were not strong in.
Reframing Fallacy #4: Feed your need to be liked by building relationships with individuals in other organizations, and asking those around you for help.
I have found that the easiest way to keep from worrying about being liked, or wanting to feel like part of the group that you’ve just been promoted out of to oversee, is to bring the team along, involving them in the establishment of organizational goals and direction. Who knows better than you, a prior member of the team, what the strengths of each individual person are and how they can best be leveraged to support the vision? Not to mention the hidden opportunities that each person would love to be a part of if given the chance.
Fallacy #5: My team runs itself, and I don’t need to be involved.
Many years ago, I worked for an executive who rarely showed up for work. My role was an entry level one, and I had little experience with the clients or function. For a while, it was great. It was like being home alone for the first time, opening all the cabinets and getting into forbidden territory. Without direction, I was learning on the fly, and many of the clients thought I was the executive on the account because they had never met my boss. However, in a relatively short time, I grew frustrated. Frustrated that he was getting all the credit (and the big salary) and I was doing all the work. Frustrated that I had no internal sounding board to keep me from making costly mistakes with clients. Frustrated that I could only learn the things that I could find to do myself. So what happened? I took all those great skills somewhere else, where I had a visible and active management structure that provided quality feedback and opportunities to grow and learn. We are all products of what we pick up from others along the way, and most employees will seek a teacher and advocate before they will seek a blank slate with no support.
Reframing Fallacy #5: The freedom to fail is much more generous than taking a “hands off” approach.
“Hands off” behavior is not the same thing as offering someone the freedom to fail safely, the tools they need to grow their skills, and the feedback they need to understand how others perceive their work. And failing safely doesn’t mean waiting for performance review time to let the individual know they screwed up. It means creating an environment where your team feels safe enough to take thoughtful and calculated risks, or take on stretch opportunities that they are unproven in, without the concern of being fired or punished if things go badly. If you can share your own painful lessons learned along the way, even better! Finally, nothing goes further than recognizing a job well done or the workload of each individual, which you cannot do if you are not around.
And One Truth: Fear guarantees failure.
There is a lot of discussion in the business press about imposter syndrome, which is often misunderstood or misattributed to certain members of the professional population. However, when consultant Roger Jones interviewed dozens of CEOs and other senior executives, the five key fears were: appearing incompetent, vulnerable, and foolish. Followed by fear of under-achieving and fear of political attacks from colleagues. The most noteworthy aspect of these findings is that none of these fears involved the role itself or the business challenges each leader faced.
Executives at any level are charged with defining vision, enabling the execution of that vision, and ensuring that stakeholders are along for the ride. However, new CEOs often get sideways quickly by over-analyzing options, seeking approval from their Board for day-to-day management decisions, and keeping their hands in too many of the non-critical departmental responsibilities. So even though they have made it to the top, being the CEO is a different animal that takes some leaders a few “Career Ending Opportunities” to realize.
In short, progressively responsible roles are often created and enabled by the person in the role, not the organization that pays them. Make sure that your trajectory stays on course with simple strategies like these to avoid the pitfalls of relying only on “technical expertise” or failing to leave the remnants of your old roles behind. Just like the old adage, “dress for the job you want,” it should also be said, leaders have to “dress” for the job they already have.