The Bigger and Bigger Challenge

Leaders face a constant demand to exceed performance of the previous year regardless of the environmental factors; bigger numbers, bigger teams, bigger roles…

As a leader you probably take it on and do this seamlessly based on your current skills and abilities or, cope as you grow into the challenge.

It’s easy to say that you have learned a lot from experience, and I am sure you have. However, you don’t know what you don’t know. You can actually be limited by your experience. It can also be a reactionary process, learning in the now, rather than a proactive process, thinking about what you need moving forward.

People expect skills gaps for lower level managers yet as you develop your career, and transform into a senior manager, there is an assumption that you know everything and have a full ‘toolkit’ on leadership and management!

I’m not saying this is wrong – it can however be exhausting if you constantly feel as though you are playing ‘catch-up’. You may also be unaware that you are in this place as it’s become a way of operating - and this doesn’t make you a leader in your own life.

Recognising you are in this Challenge

This may be the perfect time for you to take a moment and reflect. You are likely to be caught in this place if you are doing any one or more of these:

• Working increased hours – you’ve taken on the additional responsibilities and find that you are going in early, working late and weekends to keep up.
• Taking on increased responsibility – you’ve taken on additional responsibilities without considering what this means to how you work and utilise resources.
• Have an increased revenue target to achieve and/or a reduced budget to deliver with either no extra resources or reduced resources.
• Increased expectations that may be explicit or not – you are not really clear about what is expected of you and are working harder – just in case.

If you recognise yourself in any of the above, rather than play catch-up I’d like to encourage you to take a more proactive look at your needs.

Start by looking 3 years from now. What would you like to be doing in 3 years time? Think of the role you’d like to be doing and how you want to be operating both in work and out of work. Take some time to do this and list the skills and attributes you want to be demonstrating. Then identify the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

• Where are you now and what would be the priorities for you?
• Are there opportunities in your current role to start developing these?
• Do you need to get some honest feedback on where you are and how you may be demonstrating these?
• Is there someone you need to ask to be your mentor?
• Is there someone you need to ask to be your coach?
• Is there someone you could shadow?
• What are the priorities and next steps?

Costs and Benefits

There will undoubtedly be costs and benefits to your choices, both hard and soft.

What would you gain by addressing these challenges and what would it cost you?

Take some time to understand if there is a broader need to be met. Sometimes there is an issue that underlies what you’ve listed and this may be the very thing that needs to be addressed. Be sure to take a holistic view and consider life outside of work. Be sure to include the cost of taking no action too!

Do the benefits out way the costs?  

If the answer is yes then all that remains is:

• To be clear about the priorities
• Take action
• Get support

‘Challenges are what make life interesting, overcoming them is what makes them meaningful.’

Joshua J. Marine