WHAT EVERY FIRSTTIME TEAM LEADER SHOULD KNOW

There are a few things you need to keep in mind while transitioning from an individual contributor to a leader.

VIKRAM IS A 27-year-old sales professional at a tech start-up and has been a consistent star performer for the last four years. He was promoted and given a team of four people to manage. A year into the new role, Vikram had not met his targets and his performance dipped significantly. Two of his team members had quit, the other two were reportedly looking for opportunities outside the company, and the annual engagement survey showed abysmal scores for him as a leader.

What happened to this star performer, and why did his performance deteriorate? Vikram’s own competence as the product expert is not in question. He was entrusted with more responsibility because of his product-level expertise and consistent performance.

Many successful young managers, who were once brilliant Individual Contributors (IC), are not able to replicate their success stories as team leaders or managers. Managing your own work and excelling at it is easier than managing a team, keeping them motivated, and getting them to excel at their job. It’s a game that many do not know how to play.

A study of data on global leaders shows the average age of first-time managers is 33 years old and that they first get leadership training on average at age 42 – about 10 years after they began supervising people. Young organisations or start-ups often find themselves with a young set of managers who may have the competence to deliver on results but often lack the skill, tact, and emotional maturity required to lead people. The heavy responsibility of leading someone else’s career and balancing it with organisational goals is a challenge.

Transitioning from an IC to a Team Leader (TL) can be difficult since your personal working style might differ from that of your direct reports, which can lead to potential conflict. In our conversations with leaders from across India, we’ve concluded that

managers tend to behave in one of the following three ways when faced with conflict situations: 1) Become brutish about imposing one’s own way, thereby causing team members to feel suppressed and/or frustrated; 2) Work on things themselves without involving their team members, eventually feeling overwhelmed with the number of things to do; 3) Delegate work to their team members without clarifying outcomes and expectations, leaving everyone confused about what is expected.

All three scenarios eventually lead to stress and mistrust within the team.

Further, based on the learnings from interactions with managers from various organisations, professor Prashant Salwan and Amulya Jamwal administered an instrument to 61 young leaders at IIM Indore to learn about their workplace challenges in leading teams and their reflections on what solutions worked for them in overcoming those challenges.

Let’s look at two of the most common reasons for the failure in the transition from IC to TL and some fundamental, yet effective, things that can be done to mitigate – and even reverse – the impact of such failures.

PROBLEM: Lack of Self-awareness

Most young managers are unaware that transition from an individual player to a team leader requires a major shift in mindset and a new approach to functioning. By the time young managers wake up to this fact, much water has flowed under the bridge, leaving little scope to undo the damages.

SOLUTION: Seek Feedback

Seeking feedback from stakeholders can help you to develop self-awareness.

For instance, Dinesh heads the creative team of a large media organisation. He is well known for his “out-of-the-box” ideas. He enjoys working in a fast-paced environment. Early in his career, it was difficult for him to establish a team. Team members joined and left in quick succession. Deeper analysis revealed that the team members felt frustrated with his micromanaging and aggressive nature. His admired ability for spontaneous ideation came under the scanner because it meant that the team had to put in extra hours to accommodate his ideas. On the other hand, Dinesh felt unappreciated. He often would end up executing his own ideas. Soon he was overwhelmed with his work, which led to unpredictable outbursts at work.

Dinesh is now a successful leader in his organisation. When asked what changed, he said: “It’s not just about me anymore.” The journey wasn’t easy for Dinesh. Over many months, Dinesh was provided with insightful feedback to help him discover himself. The feedback, initially met with resistance, was gradually accepted by Dinesh. He became aware of how he was being perceived by others and how these self-created perceptions were impacting his work. His mindset began to change.

Dinesh had to transform the way he set expectations with his team. He had a team that looked up to him for direction. He began to communicate more effectively, accommodate his team’s ways of working and establish accepted team norms.

To assist in the transition from “unaware” to “aware”, many organisations have a first-time managers programme to train and educate young managers on the necessary skills to successfully lead teams. In the absence of formal processes, all one must do is to go out and seek feedback, reflect upon it, and then act on it.

PROBLEM: Inability to Develop Others

To be effective, managers must learn to understand others’ aspirations and nurture others’ capabilities. For instance, this could include knowing how and when to delegate tasks, how to lead a group of diverse individuals with varying strengths and abilities, and how to achieve the desired result without stretching themselves. The inability of a leader to do so is the single biggest contributor to failed leadership in any organisation today.

Shailee was promoted to team lead after four years of working as a high-performing frontline call-taking advisor in a leading ITeS firm in Mumbai. A few months into her new role, she witnessed increased absenteeism and several attrition red flags. Closer inspection of the situation revealed that she had not been able to let go of her IC mindset. In her new role, she required to focus not only on her own performance but also the eight team members she had been assigned to lead. This lack of awareness proved to be her undoing as a team leader.

SOLUTION: Develop Coaching Skills

While some managers may be naturally predisposed to coaching, this skill has to be particularly developed in most aspiring managers. Developing the ability to coach others has been the biggest requirement of any leadership role.

In Shailee’s case, it was evident that she was a brilliant individual performer. However, once she became a team leader, she didn’t realise that the stakes had changed. Once she received feedback, she enrolled in Coaching Skills Programmes at her organisation and began to coach her team. In about a year’s time, she was adjudged the best team leader in her business unit.

If your organisation doesn’t provide formal workshops on coaching skills, there are plenty of online coaching resources.

What really matters when it comes to leadership is how you best support your team. Being self-aware and learning how to coach your direct reports are major skills that can go a long way in honing your other leadership competencies like conflict management, communication skills, delegation, and problem-solving, etc.

Prashant Salwan is a full-time professor, teaching Strategy and International Business at IIM Indore, India. He is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, and a British Chevening Scholar and Fulbright Scholar. Amulya Jamwal is a HR professional, working in Learning and Development, Leadership Development and Organisation Development across IT, ITeS and media industries. He is an alumnus of the Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development, Pune, India. This article was first published on https://hbrascend.org. HBR Ascend is a digital-learning platform for graduating students and early-career professionals.