The only thing you get to change is yourself, and in the prerequisites to this course we’ve given you real tools to do that. Now, use those tools to influence the course of your future, your team's future, and your organization's future. Make a plan for yourself that will help you help others, and learn skills to make it happen.
Listening and being sure of your values underpins everything that comes with professional influencer and leadership soft skills. We’ll go on to look at self-assessment and leadership planning, negotiation, addressing and resolving conflict, and successfully identifying and promoting circumstances you want.
After this course, you will be able to:
- state your own mission and plan with confidence
- negotiate and persuade
- deal with difficult people
- contribute to crafting a working environment you want to work in
The prerequisites for this course are Courses One and Two of the Specialization "Professional IQ: Preventing and Solving Problems at Work".
De la lección
Week 1: Becoming a Leader
Find out what it can be like to make the transition into a leadership role. Learn how your values and branding are essential in this transition.
Director of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE), Professor Emerita of Business, and Research Professor at the Coordinated Science Laboratory
We asked a number
of our experts to share with us their path to leadership
and what the transitions they experienced were like along the way.
What lessons they learned,
what reflections they have looking back.
Let's hear what they have to say.
Managing the change with my colleagues as I
transition from a staff to a leadership level,
was somewhat difficult I would say.
It was made easier by the fact that I had good working relationships,
good friendships, even with the people that I was working with.
And I think that's really the foundation for any successful relationship.
Whether you're working together as peers,
whether you're working together as a leader and a subordinate,
if you have a good foundational relationship,
you get along well, you respect each other that makes everything easier.
Because we had that,
that helped ease my transition.
So I was able to sit down with my team,
with my team mates, and say to them,
"Look, I've got this new promotion.
I'm really excited about it.
It's a new opportunity for me.
My job role is going to change.
My responsibilities are going to change.
Our relationship is not going to change.
I'm still going to be up for going out to dinner
and talking about the weekend with you and having fun.
But when it comes to our day-to-day responsibilities,
it's now going to be my job to delegate some tasks to you.
Or when you complete an assignment,
it's going to be my job to serve as the reviewer
for it and I think it will be an interesting opportunity.
I think we'll probably have some some ups and some downs along the way.
I'm sure there's things that I'll say that you agree with.
I'm sure there's some feedback that I'll give you where you'll think that I'm crazy.
But as long as you provide me with some feedback and let me know if I'm giving it,
if I'm providing feedback in a manner that you can accept it,
if I'm being helpful,
I need you to let me know if you think I'm micromanaging
you and I'm going to take your feedback into account.
Obviously, I have responsibilities to our boss, and to our partners,
and to the client that I may need to make sure that I follow.
But to the extent I can keep our relationship as similar as I can,
I'd certainly like to do that."
Being able to set the groundwork or lay the foundation with my team made it easier,
so that a month and or two months into the project,
I could have those conversations with them and say, "Okay,
I know we talked about that awkward moment coming and here it is.
I need to give you some feedback on this deck.
I think this, that and the other parts of it are great,
but here's a few areas I think we need to improve.
Or I talked to the clients and they want us to go
through and redo this part of the project.
Here's what I need specifically from you."
Having that earlier conversation made it easier for both of us,
knowing that my role would change,
knowing that we both have to manage some of that change.
That it might be a little bit difficult for both of us,
or for all of us on the team.
But making sure we've got ahead of it I thought was really helpful.
So the transition to leadership poses its own challenges.
Transitioning to work.
For us when you become a manager,
you may or may not be leading folks who previously were your peers.
I found that our people evolve during that year.
I think because there is a lot of growth,
and that transition from being peer to peer and to being that manager.
A lot gets involved in that.
Your relationships with those people tend to change a little bit.
You may evolve and have a work persona,
as well as a personal persona if you have friendships with those individuals.
A lot of it is a little bit of
a tough transition and people have to do a little bit of experimentation.
They need to communicate clearly with one another,
and they really need to value those relationships,
and strive to preserve them through the transition.
I think one of the biggest things that I wish I had known earlier,
and it's a common theme is overcommunicating.
I had a client and I was working on a specific project,
another team needed help,
and so I offered some support.
And that person wound up working with my client,
and my client heard that I was working there.
And my client said, "Are you working on two projects?
I'm really confused." Of course,
I wasn't working on two projects.
This was something I was doing after work at night to help some colleagues out.
I hadn't even mentioned that to my client,
and so she was really confused when she heard my name over there as well.
So that was what I look at as a tough conversation that didn't need to happen.
Now, I overcommunicate.
I say it at the beginning of the project, "I overcommunicate.
If it gets to be too much and it gets cluttered,
tell me and I can send fewer emails or give you fewer updates."
But I always want to make sure you know exactly what's on my mind,
what I've been up to, what's next,
and what is the potential risks there.
I found for me,
it's a good way to cover myself and make sure all the bases are corrected.
If you would have told me three years ago that I would be saying that I don't communicate
enough as somebody who often gets told to slow down his communication,
and doesn't need to always talk and let others speak, I would have laughed.
I think what's really interesting is that it's really not about talking a lot.
It's about making sure,
as a form of communication,
others are being looped in and aligned to your same set of goals.
I think that's really powerful.
So there's just examples where somebody comes in an hour late,
and takes a call and remote.
There's some managers who'll be really confused
why you are taking a call and remote without letting them know.
Other managers won't care at all.
Communicating early and often helps align everybody and keep them on the same page.
One thing that is real important to me,
especially when you have career changes,
which a lot of us will do in our lifetimes,
is the retooling and re-educating yourselves to be prepared for the next opportunity.
And some of the things that we go through is the specialization of our jobs,
being in a general practice area and then becoming more specific to that practice.
And I think that going forward employees and students,
whoever are going to find that in the workplace,
they're going to have to be more specific in their knowledge.
So, I'm a lifelong student continuing to be
certified and updating my educational levels to know what's going on.
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Inscríbete de manera gratuita y obtén recomendaciones personalizadas, actualizaciones y ofertas.
C. K. GunsalusDirector of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE), Professor Emerita of Business, and Research Professor at the Coordinated Science Laboratory
