How to decide to transition into leadership through four steps

You've been in your profession for years if not decades. You could be an engineer, computer scientist, financial analyst, or so forth. Do you stay into your current role, or do you transition into leadership? Of course, by leadership I mean taking on a role with manager as its title. I purposely wrote transition into leadership not into management for a simple reason. I believe that professionals in roles of authority should lead people, and they manage processes. Although you have a manager title, you have responsibilities towards your team. You lead them to success. You inspire them to seek continuous improvement through continuous learning. Leading implies you act as part of and for the team. Managing represents an off to the side style with a you versus them mentality. Manager is a title, and leader is a mentality or way of approaching problems that require team efforts. With this clarification, how do you decide if leadership is the right path for you?

Consider your Motivations

Why do you want a title of manager? Before you begin interviewing for management position, you must delve deep into that question. This is not just so you can convince your interviewers to hire you for that role. You must self-reflect, so you can make sure that you want to take on the added responsibilities that managers have. Grab several pieces of paper or your favorite note taking app. Make sure that you write down your thoughts, so you can review them on your own or with your mentor. You might find that you have several reasons for becoming a manager:

• Earn additional money
• Your current role no longer challenges you
• You enjoy mentoring and / or coaching others
• You like tackling the financial side of the business
• You enjoy giving others direction
• You find satisfaction in implementing technical strategies

Your list could include other items. It could omit some of the items here. What's important is that you truthfully write down why you want to become a leader who has an official management title. Some of your reasons could be valid, others not. By valid, I mean reasons that focus on taking a role for reasons that benefit you and others. For example, although it is true that managers tend to earn more money than regular employees, becoming a manager only for money could mean that you ignored the responsibilities that come with the role. You might think it's easy to tell other employees what to do, yet you would be in for a surprise when employees start coming to you with their problems.

Leadership: It's not just about you. You must foster an environment that ensures your team's success

Please do not get me wrong. I see nothing wrong with earning more money. Every person on this planet would argue they need more money. However, money cannot and should not be your only motivation for becoming a leader. Focus on doing your job well, and the money will follow. You will face challenges in a leadership role. For example, entry level members of your team might not know how to solve an engineering problem. Although you might be tempted to give them the solution, your better strategy would be to guide that junior engineer through the problem. Your goal would be to assist the employee in finding a viable solution. That engineer might know several possible solutions and might be stuck in deciding which one to follow. Your role as that engineer's leader is to be a coach. That can be a challenge because you would have solved that problem yourself in your previous role, and you must overcome that tendency for taking over. Additionally, you might not know how to clearly communicate the path forward. These things take practice, and not everyone wants to do that.

Of course, engineers who transition into leadership can face other challenges. For example, many engineers focus on finding technical solutions to problems that result in products. They might not have first hand experience in the financial aspects that drive customer need. How much is the customer willing to pay for a product? It might seem cool to you, yet the customer might not want it or know that it addresses their needs. How much does it cost to develop a product? What if develop costs overrun monies raised through sales? As a leader, you would need to estimate the answers to these problems and monitor over the lifetime of a product. It can be daunting for some, yet it can generate excitement for others. If you have not had experience in this capacity, I would highly suggest that you gain experience by proposing a project within your company, and managing the cost of the project throughout its life span.

Once you define why you want to transition into leadership, I suggest that you prioritize those reasons. I explain why below.

Prioritize Your Motivations

When you take on a new role, it might not address all of the reasons you took at that role. Another way to think about this is that your current role requires you to take on different responsibilities at different times. This is true for positions in leadership. Where am I going with this? You decide which of your reasons are most important for you. Then make sure they match with the role. Put another way, if you do not like working with other people, you will put that as a low priority. You will not enjoy a leadership role because it requires that you work closely with your team. However, if you enjoy helping people work though their issues, you will find fulfillment in this role.

Align Your Motivations to the Leadership Role: Your motivations will help you when the going gets tough.

Match your reasons for becoming a leader with the role itself. This exercise will help you learn the difference between what you perceive management roles to entail with reality of the roles. Although you can gain satisfaction from being a manager, you should understand that the roles have difficulties. You might need to lay off poor performing employees. You might need to inform the team of potential customers lost. However, you can bear good news. You can coach an employee who has been performing poorly to catch up before time for annual reviews. You can guide your team in making product improvements, so your company wins more customers. Much of this comes from your perspectives. Will your prioritize your motivations such that you avoid crucial conversations or do you embrace them?

At this stage, you might not be ready to decide. You might need more information to decide if leadership is right for you. How do you get this information?

Speak to Other Managers About their Roles

Start with your own manager. Seek out other managers you have worked with on projects. Ask them the following questions:

• Why did you decide to become a manager?
• What do you like about your role?
• What do you dislike and would like to change about it?
• What did you want to accomplish when you became a manager?
• What do you want to accomplish now?

Write down other questions that you believe are relevant to the role. This is not an interview for a position. You want to find out information. You want to learn the good and bad about the role. Ask as many people as you can. If you ask one person who became cynical, you might be convinced that management roles are not good for your career. Of course, you should consider their reasoning with a grain of salt, so you can understand constraints your company's culture would place on you. Make sure you take detailed notes!

Seek out other managers' insights because their experiences can help you decide if leadership is right for you

After you meet with managers, compare your notes with your motivations. How well does your perception of leadership roles compare to reality? If you still want to transition into leadership, reconsider your motivations. You might have missed something. It's important that you listen to what your managers have to say to you, as you might learn about reasons you never considered. Of course, your conversations with managers would serve as an indicator that you're interested in becoming a manager. This is an added benefit to your career, yet it is not your primary purpose for speaking to other managers.

Remember, you are on an information finding mission. If you decide that you want to become a manager (or not) during these talks, that's great for you. However, you might not be sure you are ready to transition into leadership. How do you make the final decision

Take on Stretch Assignments in Roles Outside Your Area

I've previously written on this subject. I mention it here because stretch (or rotational) assignments are ways for employees to decide if they want to transition into a new aspect of their careers. Think of it like renting to buy except you gain from the experience. You can take on a short (a minimum of six months up to twelve months) rotation in a role as a manager. The first few months will be the most challenging. You will need training and time to adjust to your new role. You need to focus on project goals from the beginning, yet your rotation manager will be there to help you. Remember that you must ask rotation managers questions. You learn not just be doing. You learn by allowing other managers to coach you. After all, they have more experience in this role, and they will help you succeed.

Stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone. You learn new skills by being uncomfortable in situations that require success

Whatever role you take on, it is important to you do well. Few senior managers will want to hire you as a first line manager if you flounder in your rotation. That's why it's important that you ask questions, as this allows you to get continuous feedback. You will course correct as needed, and you will learn from that experience. There exists risk that you will do poorly in your new role because it forces you to learn new skills. However, you can apply the skills you have in this temporary role. I liken this to addressing fear of heights by taking on diving. You start out by diving off the one meter high board. You already know how to swim, so you will realize that you will be fine after jumping off the board. As you develop comfort on that board, start jumping off the next board. Of course, if you don't know how to swim, you will sink like a stone. Thus, you must take on a rotation in an area that allows you to develop new skills by applying skills you've previously mastered.

If you hate a rotation in leadership, you have your answer: Do not go into leadership. Otherwise, you could interview to make your rotation permanent. Alternatively, you could use the rotation as a lateral move into a different leadership position. You will find that your discomforts fade away as you gain experience in this new role. However, I advice that you periodically increase your challenge levels. This prevents you from becoming so comfortable in your role that you become complacent. After all, you want continuous feedback, so you can make sure that you are doing as well as you think you are. Part of leadership is receiving feedback not just giving it.

Summary

In this post, I discuss how you decide to transition into leadership. You can use four steps that apply whether you are in technology, finance, operations, or so forth. First, you consider your motivations for becoming a leader. Are your motivations altruistic? Do you want only the money and prestige that comes with the role? Or, go you generally want to help other people? If your motivations focus on working with other people and helping them succeed, leadership could be right for you. Second, prioritize your motivations. You will not being doing everything you think leaders do all the time. This serves as a check that what you want to get out of leadership matches what you perceive leaders doing. Of course, you might not know what leaders really do. That leads us into the next step. Third, speak to several managers about their roles. Ask them many questions to find out why they sought those roles. You want to know both the good and the bad. Managers need to make tough decisions, and you want to know that you can handle doing that. Of course, you can coach your employees to maximize their performance. How you handle the bad aspects will depend on your perspectives. Fourth, take on rotational assignments with leadership responsibilities. This will help you decide if leadership / management is right for you. You will take on roles that require you to lead others. You will need to learn quickly on the job. You will risk failure, yet your rotation manager will help you learn. You need to be brave and be willing to receive feedback. However, this will prepare you to becoming a manager. Look to your overall fulfillment in the role. If you enjoy providing technical guidance to your team and reporting status up to your managers, leadership could be right for you. I wish you best of luck in your career.

Do you want to learn more about engineering, career advancement, and leadership? Please read my prior posts on this subject:

• Why do emotions matter in our career? Give pause to your emotions using a four letter word
• How You can Lead Your Team to Success with Four Effective Leadership Principles
• Avoid the Complacency Trap Using Four Important Concepts
• Overcoming Introversion in Three Counterintuitive Steps
• How You Can Successfully Propose Your Engineering Projects using Five Principles
• Definitive Guide on Boosting Careers: How to Find Stretch Assignments
• Accelerate your career through stretch assignments 
• How to Market Yourself for Larger Paychecks and Promotions
• How to Evolve Your Stagnant Career towards Exciting Fields in STEM
• How to Turn Cynicism into Positive Action
• Sometimes leadership means cleaning up the mess you created
• Learn from your mistakes to build on your experiences

How You can Lead Your Team to Success with Four Effective Leadership Principles

As an engineering leader, you need to manage processes and lead teams. The days when leaders thought "my people must do what I say" passed long ago. Now, leaders must think and act on this question: "How can I help my team succeed?" As a leader, you learn to operate with constraints. In an ideal world, you could provide your team with anything they need: software, highest performing multi-cored multi-threaded computers, multiple computer monitors per desk, comprehensive employee training, and much more. You can provide anything your team needs, yet you cannot provide everything at once.  When you transition from engineering into leadership, you will find the soft aspect of leadership to be difficult at time. You will find communication paramount. In this article, I provide advice on how you can lead your teams to success.

Set Clear Boundaries with your Team

You serve as an interface between your engineering team and other managers. Difficulties can arise because you and your team members might report to multiple individuals. Why does this happen? Your engineers receive directions from multiple leaders. It can seem like too many cooks stir the pots. Not all hope is lost. Clear communication removes barriers that frustrate you and your team. By setting boundaries, you define individuals' responsibilities including your own.

How do you set clear boundaries? Call a staff meeting. It doesn't matter if you are a new manager or a seasoned one. You get your team together in one room and get issues & concerns out in the open. This process requires a combination of leadership styles, as you will request their inputs. You start by defining what you need the team to accomplish: goals against the projects they support and other business related items. Use this time to make clear how often you will hold monthly staff meetings and what you will cover in those meetings. Make sure you make clear how often you expect status reports. Make it clear what format you expect them in and how much detail they should provide.

Set boundaries, so you make your expectations clear, and you understand what your team needs

Once you set your expectations, you can switch to a democratic leadership style and seek your team's feedback. This allows you to do something important: You establish how you will behave in assisting the team succeed in their roles. Do they want you to be hands off and available only when needed? How some employees need more hands-on assistance? Do they need any training, materials, and equipment to do their jobs effectively? Each team has unique needs. Listen to your team and adjust your leadership style the best you can, so you can assist each employee.

Although I write using positive outlooks, I understand situations exist that warrant difficult measures. For example, your company might be facing a tough time, and profits become nonexistent. Your team will naturally be tense and nervous. As their leader, you must communicate the situation to them clearly and honestly. You can mitigate their fears as much as you can, yet you should state that the situation could be out of your control. In other words, good leaders are willing to show their vulnerabilities, and you might need to do just that. Although you might need to layoff employees, keep them apprised of the situation as soon as it becomes a problem. Focus on ways that employees can do their jobs better, so they can return the company to profitability, and you can avoid layoffs. However, if this becomes inevitable, make sure your staff knows how many people it will effect. Meet with low performing employees early and in private, so they can prepare for their next job. No employee likes being laid off with no notice. They might ignore the signs. I should know, as it's happened to me during my career.

Boundaries can be difficult to figure out, and you will need to customize them according to your team. My belief is that boundaries should be set at the beginning of the manager / employee relationship and adjusted throughout. However, Abe Turner at Insperity argues that they should be set later in the management strategy. This allows leaders to get to know their team better and understand their individual needs. If you remember that boundaries evolve over time, you can set initial boundaries and modify them as you and your team grow.

Of course, you should make a point to meet with other employees. Figure out which employees influence your team the most and schedule meetings with them. This brings me to my next principle.

Hold Informal Meetings with your Most Influential Team Members

You need to understand what your team needs. You do this by meeting with them and asking them questions. Your team consists of engineers having multiple levels of experience. A few of these engineers shine as leaders. These are the employees who can rally the rest of the team to reach project milestones. They lead discussions. They set meeting rhythms and maintain project status. Other engineers might look up to them. Your initial emphasis might focus on the most senior members of your team. However, ability does not necessarily correlate with years of experience.

The idea that older people should be the ones in charge is not new. In the Republic, Plato argued the case that leadership must fall to the elders. I recall his argument focused on the young people's lack of wisdom. I disagree with his argument. Although more experienced employees could possess more experience in leading projects, that does not mean that managers should not trust younger employees to lead. At the least, give an employee who shows potential for leading a small potential the opportunities. Just because employee have not had opportunities to lead teams, does not mean that they want them.

Your team leads have valuable inputs. Listen to what they have to say.

Why should you meet with the most influential team members? Why informally? It's simple: They have the eyes and ears of the team. You should set regular meeting rhythms with the entire team, say once a month. However, if you want to understand what the team needs, you seek out feedback from the few people who interact with the rest. I suggest you hold informal meetings in the sense that you allow the team leads free speaking reign. This encourages candor, honestly, and open feedback. You make them feel comfortable in the process.

When you have these meetings, you start asking three general questions:

1. Continue: What does the team (I) do well?
2. Stop: What does (do) the team (I) need to stop doing?
3. Start: What does (do) the team (I) need to start doing?

In some ways, you can see these as six questions. I wrote them compactly because the first pair of three focus on the team, and the last three questions focus on you. For effective feedback, it should flow in both directions. You can ask individuals questions. However, they might feel hesitant to approach you because you are new to the team, they are shy, etc. Seeking candid feedback from the team leads allows you to understand your performance. Remember, you want to help your team succeed. You cannot do this if they feel uncomfortable to approach you with criticism.

Remember, the purpose of these meetings is for you to help the team. You give guidance not orders. You can tell employees what to do provided your instructions align with project schedules, task assignments, and so forth. This is where the boundaries you set help.

I've discussed how you will meet with low performing employees with the goal of helping them improve their performance. At some point, you will need to meet with all of your employees individually, as each person will need assistance during their careers.You will coach them individually. I discuss this in the following section.

Coach Team Members Individually

One of my managers noted that good managers must be willing to mentor and / or coach employees individually. Each person has their own needs, and you must take time to address them. Good leaders listen intently and offer their team members advice. You will not know all of the answers, nor do your employees expect that of you. However, you seek out answers and get back to the employees because your have responsibilities to provide that information.

Coaching and mentoring are alike in some regards. You provide advice to your employees. You listen to what they have to say. However, the focus of coaching is to make sure your team succeed. (You can be both mentor and coach to individuals, but it does not make sense for you to mentor the team.) You should coach all of your employees, and you adjust your style per person. Some people are shy, so you need to proactively ask them questions. Others might provide too much, so you ask them to summarize. You might not agree with what your employees say, or you might be tempted to do the work for them. On these points, I have two statements

1. Show your employees respect. You can provide constructive feedback, yet you must not belittle them. It will damage your relationship
2. Providing your employees guidance does not mean that you do their work. You might need to hold junior employees' hands to get them started. However, you do the employee, yourself, and your company disservice if you do not allow them to solve their challenges.

My second point can be tricky to implement. You have experience, and you've probably been through what your junior employees go through now. For the sake of the business, you might feel tempting to do the work for them. Do not succumb to that temptation. The best way your junior employees can gain experience is for them to be challenged. You can still help them. With an engineering problem, you can have them work through the mathematics behind the problem. Ask them questions during each step, such as

• Why did you choose that solution?
• What do you think the next steps could be?
• What happens if you did something different at step C before you reached step D?

When you use the question style of problem solving, you do not do your employee's work. Instead, you guide them through the problem to reach a potential solution. Often, the issue is not that the employee doesn't know the answer. The issue is that the employee knows several possible answer and is unsure which one is the best. They could psych themselves out by feeling overwhelmed. In engineering undergraduate programs, the solutions to problems often follow a recipe. This is not so apparent in real life. It is your job as a manager to help your employees build their skills as they become more senior.

Of course, not all employees perform well. You should communicate with your team that you will meet with low performing employees on a regular basis. Susan Heathfield at The Balance Careers notes that "the goal of coaching is to work with the employee to solve performance problems and to improve the work of the employee, the team, and the department." You use these coaching sessions to find out what's going on with these employees, and you will help them in any way you can. As an effective leader, you would want to layoff zero employees. In the real world, however, your goal should be to layoff or fire only those employees who do not improve despite your attempts to help them succeed. By meeting with these employees, it should come as no shock when you give them notice if their performance does not improve.

During this entire article, I've written on how you help your team succeed. Of course, you are human, and you need assistance from time to time. You will need help, and you can get that help through coaching and mentorship. You get that by meeting with your own manager (i.e., the senior manager). I discuss that next.

Hold One-One-One Meetings with Your Manager

As an engineer, you might have held monthly face-to-face meeting with your manager. Now that you are a leader, you need to hold one-on-one meetings with your Senior Manager. These meetings serve several purposes:

• Flow down business strategies (technical, financial, etc.) and directives from Executive Leaders
• Get updates on the business: financials, status on products / projects, etc.
• Allow you to give summarized project status
• Discuss employee promotions
• Address staffing needs
• Give you growth opportunities

This list clearly does not contain every discussion topic, and some of these topics are self explanatory. (If you need to hire additional staff, you'll tell your senior manager and get go ahead to open an HR requisition.) However, the ones I list represent information that your staff and your manager need for success. For instance, how can you expect your team to succeed if they do not know their priorities? One of your roles is to flow down the technical strategy to your team, as they will implement it. Additionally, your team would be interested in product / project status because that will give them the big picture. It allows them to understand how their contributions affect the business.

When you meet with your Senior Manager, you give them project updates. Although you will formally do this in manager meetings, you can give your manager summaries of your team's accomplishment during face to face meetings. After all, it behooves you and your team members when you display their accomplishments. It shows that you care about their contributions, as recognition ultimately comes with rewards. This rings true if some of your employees deserve promotions. You will point out employees who show leadership potential and are ready to become team leads or managers. To be promoted, employees often prove that they're capable of doing work at a level above their current pay grade. Your manager will request that you put together a promotion package for your employee. The requirements for promotion will depend on your organization. However, you will want to substantiate each requirement with employee accomplishments. 

In the previous section, I mentioned that there will come times when you need coaching and mentoring. Let's say you just became a manager. You might not know what you're doing, or you might feel uncomfortable in your new role. Ask your new manager for advice, as all Senior Managers held first level manager positions. They struggled to lead their team effectively, and they want you to succeed. Ask them for help, and ask the following questions:

• What were the challenges you faced when you first became a manager? How did you overcome them?
• What gaps in skills do I lack or need improvement? How can I fill those gaps?
• What advice do you have on coaching poor performing employees?
• How can I get my employees to be more open in discussing problems they face?
• Is there anything in the strategy I am missing?
• What should I start, stop, continue doing?

You will find that effective leadership requires you to be self reflective and willing to continually learn. Sometimes you need to ask tough questions and have crucial conversations. These conversations will be difficult, and your manager can coach you in handling them better. You might need to take additional training, and it will take practice. However, by keeping a growth mindset, you will learn how to guide employees despite their backgrounds.

Summary

In this article, I discuss four effective leadership principles you can use to lead your team to success. First, you set clear boundaries with your team. They need to understand what to expect from you as their manager, and you need to understand what makes them tick. You can get there by meeting with your team. Use those meetings to set expectations both ways. Make sure that your team feels comfortable approaching you with their problems, and you should be willing to coach them. 

Second, you meet with the most influential members of your team. These employees have lead project roles, and they understand what other members of your team are doing. Chances are, these employees display the most outspoken natures. They achieved their leadership positions by showing willingness to take charge. You can take advantage of that to find out what they and the remainder of your team need. Third, you coach your team members individually. These meetings can be periodic, or you can hold them on an as needed basis. You guide your employees by addressing any problems they might have. You should take more time with junior employees, as they might feel unsure in their new roles fresh out of college. Coaching can be difficult at times, yet you will get better at it with practice.

Fourth, you will meet with your manager (i.e., the Senior Manager) on a regular basis to provide them with status updates and to get strategic directives. You might need coaching, so your manager can assist you in becoming a better manager. Do not be shy. Your manager has a breadth of knowledge that can you can gain, and it will help you understand several things: How to coach employees, how to address problems within the team, and so forth. To be an effective leader, you must have a growth mindset. This means you must challenge your perceptions and be willing to continually learn new skills. You can transfer those skills to your employees and help them grow in their careers. After all, some day you will become a Senior Manager. The ability to train your replacement shows you have effective leadership habits. It shows you add value to your company, and the employees you train to become managers will pass on what you taught them. They will become effective leaders who guide their teams to success.

Do you want to learn more about engineering, career advancement, and leadership? Please read my prior posts on this subject:

• Avoid the Complacency Trap Using Four Important Concepts
• Overcoming Introversion in Three Counterintuitive Steps
• How You Can Successfully Propose Your Engineering Projects using Five Principles
• Definitive Guide on Boosting Careers: How to Find Stretch Assignments
• Accelerate your career through stretch assignments 
• How to Market Yourself for Larger Paychecks and Promotions
• How to Evolve Your Stagnant Career towards Exciting Fields in STEM
• How to Turn Cynicism into Positive Action
• Sometimes leadership means cleaning up the mess you created
• Learn from your mistakes to build on your experiences