Lead Not Manage

The trend continues: many companies are moving to lean structures with less hierarchies and reduced number of managers. Senior individual contributors are requested to take leadership without carrying a management title or even a team lead role. Some of them are promoted before receiving formal training. How to move up before jumping into the cold water?

Those freshly tasked leaders often didn’t have any intention to lead a team before been thrown into the ring. They must be ready to move quickly into their new assignment while keeping the original workload. Despite missing an intentionally motivated leadership career, the former specialists want to manage well in their new roles as they are known as successful individual contributors before and want to keep their high standards. Where can they receive help and what is needed to perform the additional task?

We are going on a leadership journey together with Daniel, a customer success expert working in the Australian organisation of a worldwide software company in Sydney. He is well perceived as a competent colleague, represents the brand on various events and blogs about that field in the media following his inner passion to help existing and prospecting clients.

Given the growth plans of the local expansion including an organisational restructuring, Daniel has just been promoted to a team management assignment while keeping most of his daily duties. Basically, he is asked to lead without having a managerial training which might come at a later stage depending company-wide availability for others as well. We will accompany him exploring the background of leadership vs. management, help him for a good start and add practical advice along his development.

Differences between Managers and Leaders

Daniel’s manager Sue was confident about his capabilities to grow into this role as she already saw in him a potential leader. The team had grown quite fast that she simply had to split her responsibilities soon and needed somebody to take care of a part of her team. During the last performance review one month ago, she already pointed Daniel into this direction, but at that time he struggled with the gap between being a real leader and handling the administrative side of the people manager tasks.

After that annual session, Daniel started to learn more about the “people thing” slowly assuming it might be a step after another year of stable work performance as an individual contributor. He came across some famous statements differentiating managers and leaders, mostly quoted in an either/or capacity although the reality will be a situational balance. John Kotter, Leadership Professor at Harvard University, described leadership as “aligning people to the vision” while “Management is a set of processes that keep an organisation functioning”.

Leadership pioneer Warren Bennis differentiated it by contrast: “The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing” and “The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why”. Or in simple words by Simon Sinek: “A boss tells people what they can do to achieve a goal. A leader asks people what they can do to advance a vision.”

Looking into this highly raised bar, Daniel asked himself if successful leaders were born or made. He understood Sue’s approach to see in him the so-called “Accidental Manager” while he perceived her in contrast as the admirable “Intentional Leader”. According to a study from Michael Walkers of Genesis Advisors, approx. 90 % of mid-level managers have originally been promoted to lead their team members although not all of them had this intention as their initial career planning.

Leaders without being Managers

While the earlier mentioned quotes about management vs. leadership are based on the balanced skills within the same person, let’s look together with Daniel into those types which are not established as people managers at all. Some examples of good candidates for future managers include:

• Well-respected specialists known as experts in their field usually show a genuine interest to help others living a trusted advisor role. Often this mindset comes with longer tenure time either with the same employer or as a functional expert joining from other companies where they achieved a trusted advisor role in a senior capacity. This is exactly Daniel’s case.
• Project managers lead their projects in a holistic way including the contributing individuals despite them being formally supervised by their line managers. That works well especially when the company has a matrix structure with clearly defined processes on the boarder between regular and project work.
• Change managers can be internal and external experts during concrete situations such as mergers & acquisitions to lead teams through a turmoil. Typically, these assignments are limited in time and the outcome can vary compared to the initial situation.
• Executive coaches and external consultants influence business leaders with their broader perspective and a balanced mix from outside view and industry knowledge. These roles should be seen from both sides on a mid- to long-term instead of expecting immediate results.
• Team leads often represent a step-up between the individual contributor and a manager taking tasks to care about a group without having a formal reporting line. Some companies implement this step in the career plans of many roles.
• Volunteer organisations are an ideal field to learn leadership skills in the real world beyond management as it is all about motivating, inspiring and persuading other volunteers without the instrument of formal guidance.
• Startup companies typically don’t use hierarchical models, all employees are hired to live an entrepreneurial spirit sharing the same ideas and developing leadership behaviour. This represents an ideal chance for individual contributors to step up to a functional leadership role over time when the company evolves into a more stable structure.
• Regional managers within the matrix organisations of large multinationals often represent solution categories or go-to-market areas beyond the regular reporting line. These enhanced responsibilities are more challenging to motivate the team without being their direct boss. The “dotted line” managers need well balanced styles to succeed in the sandwich between country teams and senior level of their region such as Asia Pacific, Europe, Americas etc.

The above-mentioned types have good chances to develop into true leadership qualities without the need to immediately concentrate on formal management training, it can come over time. Leadership author John Maxwell described the journey into the inner leader in his book “The 5 Levels of Leadership” by distinguishing the five steps of a ladder.

At the lowest level (“Position”) somebody is appointed to a managerial role and just relies on the formal authority as an instrument to direct others rather than to influence them. The examples above usually skip the first level missing the formal authority on others, mostly because they don’t want to be managed that way either.

The second level (“Permission”) is based on relationships built with mutual respect. All mentioned types need to build strong collaboration with other stakeholders. Usually they are engaged in their field as subject matter experts or as thought leaders. Here we can find the Accidental Manager as the initial intention has always been to be perceived as an expert. Under this guidance, their stakeholders consequently want to build a mutual relationship with them.

Level three (“Production”) is about a common effectiveness to achieve targets together as a team. Many of the mentioned types influence others with a group approach like team leads, project managers and leaders of volunteer activities. When the group understands the “why” of the informal leaders towards a common goal, no formal management is needed to move within Bruce Tuckman’s forming-storming-norming-performing development.

Level four (“People Development”) adds the re-production element to develop suitable individuals into leaders. This level can be reached without formal management especially for change managers, external consultants and coaches as long those to be developed see a mutual value in their common journey. Within regular reporting lines, the Accidental Managers need more time to achieve this level.

Leaders on the highest level five (“Pinnacle”) transcend organisations or even industries by their reputation like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Charismatic leaders changing their field as individuals still have a team around them, their tribe is contributing in the best common interest following the leader’s “why” without the need for formal control.

Practical ways to lead during the start

With a raised interest to move slowly into a management position within a year’s time, Daniel was shocked when Sue came with the news that he was promoted already shortly after the start of the company’s next financial year. Before attending any formal program, he asked Sue immediately for a short mentoring for the first three month as a guided transition.

As a first step, she suggested him to create an inventory of his already existing leadership activities such as a 360-degree test and the DISC personality test capturing dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance. She further asked him if he remembered the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator test (“I’m an ESTJ”), but rather in the context of the whole team, not just for himself.

As he had to keep his regular work to a certain extent at least during the beginning, he decided to keep what already brought him this nomination while fine tuning his communication skills. Here are his practical activities for the start:

1. Creating a positive impact

Experts in their roles treat others with respect in an open and honest behaviour with a genuine interest to help beyond their roles. They pursue many chances to spread good vibes across an organisation by sharing success stories to their teams and beyond. He continued conducting internal Lunch & Learn about topics of greater interest and volunteering activities not just from teaching point of view, but to improve the skills of the participating team members.

2. Gaining knowledge and continual development

Accidental managers are often driven by the changes in their industry and handle their own personal development. Typical examples can be found in the ICT sector with Artificial Intelligence or in the Finance sector with the upcoming Blockchain revolution. These contributors strive for excellence constantly and can ignite passion for younger employees in more generic functions on this journey. Daniel stopped keeping his knowledge for himself and shared more with others by transforming his inspiration on the field towards them. On top of that, he started to read books about leadership from Simon Sinek’s famous “Start with Why” to the newly released “Putting Your Employees First” from Michael Bergdahl.

3. Continue to be an authority in the field

External recognition for their own work motivates team members to learn constantly. By contributing to conferences as keynote speakers or authoring for specialised publications, individuals can become well-recognised trusted advisors within their industry. Especially in the age of social media, other team members find their own voice beyond their regular work. Going regularly to industry events, Daniel had the chance to bring some of his team members to encourage them to speak up and gain reputation.

4. Acting in the best interest of clients and stakeholders

Subject matter experts are well connected in their respective industry and build a professional network over years. They act with highest integrity and master the engagement with stakeholders on the base of mutual trust and respect. As problem solvers they serve customers with highest possible standards. Often staying longer in the company than top management, those individuals lead others with a “can do” attitude supporting the organisation’s values and reputation. In this area, Daniel already inspired others in his team. Being promoted, he remained humble and directs his message of customer success further into his team.

5. Mentoring the next generation

Sharing the skills and experience to graduates and younger colleagues is a very rewarding process for both sides. The mentor receives satisfaction by contributing to the mentee’s personal development. Younger employees provide a different perspective and help to develop a strong business network. For employers without a dedicated program, organisations like Mentorloop or the Institute of Managers and Leaders (IML) can fill this gap and add an external view. Daniel’s company doesn’t partner yet with any of them, so he reached out to Sue as his mentor first and considered having a coach by himself in the mid-term. At a later stage, he might look into becoming an official mentor once he is comfortable and proven as a people manager.

Challenges during the transition

The move into the people manager roles wasn’t that rosy for Daniel – not only because of the incremental work but also due to three major challenges. He soon realised that his colleague Kevin has been more vocal about a desire to move up and therefore didn’t collaborate properly with Daniel. He has been one of the earliest employees in the Australian office and thus perceived himself as more senior to Daniel although he already hasn’t been promoted into a manager role when Sue has been hired from outside. Daniel applied his curiosity approach to find out Kevin’s “why” in regular 1:1 sessions and agreed with him on a plan to potentially become Daniel’s backup.

Looking back into his leadership profile done with Sue before, Daniel realised that he is a mostly visionary and participative leader handling an open-door process of management. The issue with Kevin could have been resolved easier with a dominant directive style. His inner mission remained to understand a “why” of a situation instead of just performing a task. Applying a “What’s in it for me” approach for the other side, he started to role play potential situations to sharpen his principles.

The third issue was delegating. As an individual contributor, Daniel was used to complete the tasks by himself or in a project management approach. Now he had to hand over some of the tasks over to this team and struggled with the result compared to this own style. It was a hard lesson to learn that “good enough” is the “new great” and he overspent time on delivering a high perfection where it wasn’t needed. He managed to hand over two major tasks in full ownership to Kevin who now felt included.

Impressions from a Masterclass

After his first two months into his management assignment, Daniel became curious on formal programs. Many institutions provide courses for existing managers to improve their skills or for those stepping up to management as an intentional route. Most of them follow the Australian Qualification Framework such as Certificate IV, Diploma or Advanced Diploma courses despite huge differences in the delivery, the practical background of the facilitators or the professionalism of the peers. Some larger corporations offer in-house training as an alternative, but that was not the case in Daniel’s company.

After some search he found a Masterclass for Accidental Managers at the Institute of Managers and Leaders, a one-day program for technical specialists like himself. The speakers seemed to be experts in their fields and highlighted various aspects of leadership tailored for his situation to move up. Vannessa McCamley provided a blend of insight and humour about the neuroscience approach of leadership to learn why we act and react as we do. Jamie Getgood, the former HR Director of Holden during the factory closure, explained by story-telling how the car manufacturer kept the focus on their proud workers with a proven track record on their personal transition into a future outside their long-standing contribution to Holden.

Daniel resonated especially with a statement from Executive Coach Duncan Fish who believes “the greatest leaders are those who are technically brilliant and who have a mastery of connecting with people.” Duncan created the “Engage” model in his book with the same name which actually stands as an acronym for Entrance, Network, Guide, Acknowledge, Glow and Enlighten. While Daniel won’t coach executives, he would apply these elements in his communication strategy towards his team and others in the ecosystem.

Reflecting the learning of the day with a view from the campus towards Circular Quay, he started to switch his mindset. Like the Harbour Bridge spans both sides of Sydney Harbour, he understood that he must combine his former technical side with a focus on people development. He would not apply the bridge example as a simple ride to the other side, rather as a well-balanced bridge in situational leadership styles.

In the following stressful months, Daniel kept some of his original tasks in the customer success team and developed an honest curiosity into his former team mates, about what drives them and how to engage with them in the best way. This helped him to transfer projects to some of his team members as well. Luckily enough he could overcome the challenge during the transition as well.

From accidental manager to intentional leader

Sue’s boss Ronald met Daniel half a year into his start as a manager asking him to reflect his experience and if there was a secret after receiving positive evaluations within the company. “Well, I concentrated my leadership journey about 6 words starting with an ‘I’, created goals for them and tried to achieve them. Some are obvious such as ‘impact’, ‘influence’, ‘inspiration’ and ‘improve’. Then I added ‘introduction’ for my mentoring with Sue and ‘interest’ for my curiosity into the team members and their development. The final word is ‘imperfection’ which might surprise you.”

Ronald was indeed speechless as the chosen term sounds rather negative. But Daniel replied: “No leader and team member is perfect, neither are the processes. I thought we need to accept a certain level of imperfection to find our way through the noise. The other values should be as high as possible, but they need a situational balance as a trade-off. That’s the acceptable level of imperfection to get the ball rolling. And it helps to keep humble, maybe that’s my secret?”

Ronald told Daniel about the Chartered Manager designation which is well established in the UK providing a grade of higher employability and is also available in Australia and New Zealand since 2017. Sue just applied for it to become officially recognised for her long-standing qualities as an intentional leader. After the conversation, Daniel saw this as a great chance for him showing consistent leadership qualities. He wrote down a goal within a two-year timeframe to proof constant efforts and go through change processes within the organisation before applying for this accreditation. Lifelong learning!

As we saw in this half-fictional example, good leadership should not be confined to upper management and those with a people manager role. Well perceived collective leadership practiced by individual contributors should be formally recognised and cultivated. The suddenly promoted accidental managers can bring a fresh quality of inspiration towards their environment and lead by example. Being empowered and trained well, they can successfully transition into becoming intentional leaders. This growth path results in stronger collaboration within the teams, a higher satisfaction level and longer retention of the overall organisation.

About the author: As an accidental manager himself, Gunnar Habitz transitioned into the leadership role of an international Sales Manager responsible for a diverse team in 29 European countries.

In 2016 he completed the Advanced Diploma of Leadership and Management at AIM in Sydney. Later he obtained the Chartered Manager designation to be involved in constant improvement of leadership standards.

Being passionate about giving back to the community, he is mentoring the next generation of leaders and has presented at Masterclass events of the Institute of Managers and Leaders. Recently Gunnar contributed to IML’s second book, “Leading Well”.