As you advance in leadership, one thing that changes is how you respond to problems that arise for your team.
When you are a technical lead or a manager of junior technicians, you may often need to offer your experience and expertise to directly solve problems that your team members face. With more senior team members, your role shifts slightly. Your experience and expertise may still come into play, but your primary focus is on helping your team members find the solution for themselves.
But there comes a point in your leadership growth where you’re leading other leaders who each have their own teams. When this happens, your approach to problems often shifts more significantly. The problems you face now affect multiple teams differently. The leaders who report to you are now offering their own solutions.
Your role, then, is no longer to lead the inventive, creative idea generation as much as it is to lead the insightful, discerning analysis of solutions provided by others. It’s at this level where it’s increasingly important to shift from the tactical, technical mindset to a more holistic business mindset. You’ll move from a proposer of ideas to an arbitrator of them. Your broader understanding of market, industry and organization-wide dynamics helps you see forces and connections that aren’t obvious to those working at a more detailed level. And when you make your decision, sharing your reasons can help your team members improve their future proposals.
For many leaders, this transition can be a difficult one. I’ve coached a number of leaders through this very kind of arbitration responsibility. If someone you know would like to strengthen their success as they advance in their leadership career, invite them to visit stevedwire.com/talk to start a conversation.
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