In the transition programmes that I conduct for first-time managers, I emphasize that learning to lead requires hard work and dedication. It is not a classroom activity where you intellectualize what you plan to do. The real learning will take place at the workplace when you interact with co-workers on a day-to-day basis, tackling real-life challenges. It involves a shift in certain leadership behaviours and will not occur overnight. Sometimes it takes months. At times, it will take longer.
This is the last chapter of this book. I congratulate you for staying the course with me. It is timely to pause and check how you are progressing. How will you respond to the following questions:
1. How far have you progressed in putting in place the five foundation stones for first-time managers? Check against the KSIs suggested.
2. What changes have you noticed in yourself?
3. What is the single most important thing that you have learnt about being a leader?
4. How do you define the values that are appropriate to your level?
The transition programmes which I conduct are done in two modules spread out over six to ten months. All participants are required to identify two or three leadership behaviours that they would like to develop further. They do these after receiving input from bosses and co-workers. At the end of the programme, we would conduct an online survey to solicit input from bosses, peers and co-workers on what progress, if any, has been observed in the leadership behaviours identified.
These are the general observations:
♦ The survey results show that most participants will have indeed made progress. There will be a minority, though, who are assessed as showing little progress.
♦ Those deemed to have the most noticeable progress have applied themselves consistently at the workplace. Additionally, they have approached co-workers, thanked them for providing preworkshop input and shared what they intend to work on. Co-workers are generally appreciative of such openness and become sensitized to their development effort. Such participants are unconsciously leading by example and sowing the seeds for a learning climate in the organizations.
♦ When bosses take an active interest in the development of the participants, the latter show even greater progress.
♦ Participants who have become much more self-aware, and who know that before they can change others, they have to first change themselves, are more impactful as leaders. Anecdotally, I notice that they are more versatile and adaptable. They also move upwards much faster.
As you continue your leadership journey, let’s take a quick peek into what the future may hold. I would like to leave you with two parting thoughts.
As you ascend the corporate ladder in the years ahead, there will be greater responsibilities and challenges. New skills and mindset will be required. You will need to manage more complex relationships. The higher you go, the more you need to be visionary and strategic. And at the same time, you have to be in touch with people lower in the organization whose responsibilities are much more operational and “here-and-now”.
Be prepared to make learning, unlearning and relearning a lifelong habit. Develop interest in an eclectic range of subjects. Read widely, both fiction and non-fiction. Talk to people in realms of experience completely different from yours. Travel widely and learn from people from all walks of life. Take frequent pauses to reflect and to decide what to do next. Recognize that jobs and occupations are going to be transitory. Don’t count on lifelong employment with one organization. The future belongs to those who are able to reinvent themselves every few years.
Proficiency in both spoken and written English is a prerequisite for business success. It therefore pays to improve one’s command of the English language. For Westerners in Asia, find out more about Eastern culture, and learn to speak some basic Mandarin.
Saying that one should never stop learning has become a cliché. What is the purpose of learning? If two persons possess similar learning, what will put one apart from the other?
Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, has developed a useful way to understand how we can progress up the hierarchy of knowledge towards wisdom. His views are represented by the DIKW Pyramid. What transforms one level in the hierarchy to the higher one until ultimately it becomes wisdom, is reflection.
“By three methods we may learn wisdom. First by reflection, which is noblest. Second, by imitation, which is easiest. Third, by experience which is bitterest.”
— Confucius
It is an unspoken but well accepted ethos that has served us well since time immemorial. Find an area of specialization and devote your life to it. This will bring you a lifetime of success and security. Thus we see people at an early age deciding to specialize as engineers, accountants, lawyers, doctors or musicians. The choices we make in our youthful days will define our careers and shape our lives.
Being a Boomer, this was the path that I took as I knew of no other way then. My choice of specialization was engineering. A few years into my working life while in my late twenties, my vista and perspective expanded somewhat. I started to discover new interests and possibilities. Suddenly remaining as an engineer didn’t seem such a cool idea. The notion of becoming a corporate honcho, running a business with full P&L (profit & loss) responsibilities soon become my all-consuming passion. I did attain that and was enjoying much satisfaction in running the Asia-Pacific operations for a multinational corporation. Then in my early forties, I woke up one day and found that something was missing. The passion had gone. It was then that I cast my eyes around and soon discovered my “second passion”—working with leaders in organizations to help them become better leaders.
In a way, this didn’t come as a surprise. As I recall it, even as far back as a teenager, I was interested in studying human behaviour. An incident in my university days remains etched in my memory. One day, not far from a dreaded exam on thermodynamics in my third year in engineering, all my classmates were feverishly mugging away. I, on the other hand, was wasting my time immersed at one end of the library reading a Harvard Business Review article. A few well-meaning friends expressed surprise at my poor use of study time. One person, however, said something prescient, “One day, you will probably find yourself doing something very different from engineering.”
And so it came to pass. In my early forties, I left corporate life and set up my own consultancy in leadership development. It has been more than 12 years and I’m still at it. Each day, I wake up feeling a spring in my step. This is my second passion in my career journey.
Whatever profession you have chosen, there will be much to learn in the years ahead. However, be open and receptive to other interests that you may develop along the way. Go beyond just work and family life. Take an active interest in your community.
Look around you. You may see examples of eminent people who have had a number of successful career changes. Some of these people may be meaningfully engaged in their day job as academics, bankers or doctors while actively pursuing an interest as a musician, painter or photographer and helping out in the community in their spare time. Then at a later stage in their lives, they decide to devote full time to their second passion.
Nobody says you shouldn’t specialize. But don’t let your choice of specialization ring-fence the rest of your life. You may have more to offer people around you. By exploring wider and deeper, I’m sure you will find greater fulfilment.
♦ Learn, unlearn and relearn. Reinvent yourself every few years.
♦ Discover, develop and pursue an outside interest. It may be your second passion.
Q1: What would you like to do 10 years from now?
Q2: How do you intend to get there?