Are your management skills maturing?
My apologies if this starts like a humble brag, but real and painful humility was experienced. Midway into my career, I enjoyed a series of leadership roles with increasing responsibility and promotions over the course of seven years. Each successive opportunity was an invitation based on the achievements of the prior role. In hindsight, I realized that it was a series of turnaround situations of varying degrees and mix of poor results, poor morale, and/or consequences from prior decisions.
The good news and bad news were that I had been highly successful. I was in my biggest and highest profile role, leading five departments and just under 100 team members, including eight managers and team leaders. After almost three years under my leadership, we essentially went from the worst of eight customer-facing departments to second in voice of the customer assessments and were crushing all key metrics, etc., etc.
Wait – what?
Imagine my shock when the corporate Vice President and Human Resource Director invited me to a midyear meeting for essentially an intervention on behalf of my leadership team. I was stunned when they explained how frustrated (understatement) my team was with me. Because of my strong past performance and their confidence that I could learn and make necessary changes, they were also explaining that I would begin working with an executive coach. I was truly speechless because I was clueless, but I was about to get an incredible education.
I then began a journey of humbly asking for feedback from each of my eight leaders. One of my team leaders was an almost 30-year seasoned veteran of the company, and he told me that he was not sure that I could ever fully recover his trust. He was not being mean, just honest in setting my expectations. I thanked him for being transparent, and I just said I was committed to learning and rebuilding our relationship.
If the only tool you have is a hammer…
Then everything looks like a nail. My management team’s skills and capabilities had developed beyond needing direction and coaching. They needed me to progress to supporting and delegating. The reader may recognize those categories from Ken Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Model. But before I was introduced to that framework years later, I was providentially blessed during my “earned mutiny” to read Blanchard’s book “Lead Like Jesus” about developing others through the learning stages of “Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, to Master”.
My leadership behavior had not matured to being increasingly less directive and increasingly more supportive as my team developed. Thus, they felt micromanaged, second-guessed, that I did not trust them, I was not listening because I was too busy trying to solve their problems and the list went on.
Restored relationships
After perhaps eight months of very intensive work, my team let my VP, HR, and the executive coach know they enjoyed working with and for me again. I was sad to end my personal sessions with Michael Neiss (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelneiss/) but I was very grateful for the coaching in developing my leadership. (Note: I also benefited from Michael’s training through “The Leadership Challenge” and the “The Leader’s Voice”)
A few months later, in a regular one-on-one session with my seasoned veteran leader, he said, “Marc, I have to tell you that I really didn’t think I would ever fully trust you again. But you have worked hard to change, and I want to tell you we are good.”
My earned mutiny was hard and humbling, but it was also rich and rewarding because I was provided with crucial support and help, and I was willing to learn, change, and grow.
I can help you in your journey to reach your full potential as a leader.
This blog was written without AI assistance other than MS Editor and edits from Katherine Nyboer (https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherinenyboer/). The image is AI generated.