Have you met people who have been outstanding, or stand head and shoulders above their peers as employees, but totally bomb when they get promoted to a line leader, or to any leadership role?
I meet so many of these types of newly minted line-leaders. They get sent to me for leadership coaching. Usually, I can feel a sense of exasperation in both the new manager, and in the superior, who promoted them.
It is a dreadful dichotomy for all involved.
As a natural career progression, the company identifies you as a high performer in your job, for a leadership role, and they believe they are rewarding you.
And, you want to get promoted. Perhaps you covet the extra income, or like the higher status, or your spouse has egged and goaded you on, to take a bigger, potentially higher paying role.
Then, things go belly-up.
Within a short period of time, you go from being an outstanding employee to performing so badly as a manager that you teeter on the brink of losing your job.
This is a real scenario that I deal with on a regular basis.
Theoretically, many people feel if someone has the skills, and the work ethic to be a good employee, they should be able to teach, organise, and motivate a team. But this may not necessarily be the case.
This is a fundamental flaw in the thinking of many decision makers in companies. The skills that make an employee good at their job, are rarely the same skills that make a good leader.
For example, a decent programmer or coder who works in programming will be logical, detail-oriented, and good at problem-solving. But having these traits, will get them into trouble when dealing with ambiguity, doubt, and other larger business-related issues.
Yet, these are the very issues that they must deal with, when leading a team.
Similarly, if you are excelling in sales, you would be very apt at talking with strangers, or following up relentlessly on a deal. And, the more extroverted or outgoing you are, the more you would have been successful at closing any deal.
This, takes you to the top of the pecking order, and your success makes you seem like a natural leader. But the best sales people are often fiercely competitive, and deeply driven and result oriented.
To be a leader of a sales team on the other hand, requires you, first and foremost, to be a mentor and a team builder. If your natural instinct is to be combative and to aggressively pursue what you want, it defeats the nurturing side of leadership.
The skills that got someone this far are not necessarily the skills they will need, going forward as leaders.
At times, average employees turn out to be great leaders, and conversely outstanding employees disappoint when they step into a leadership role.
So, does this mean that the best employees should not be promoted? Absolutely not!
It simply means that everyone needs to receive proper training to become good leaders. Wipe the slate clean before you promote someone. Do not take for granted that a model employee can step up into a new role, and instantaneously start to display leadership acumen.They need to be trained for a whole new set of skills.
Daniel Goleman, psychologist, science journalist and arguably the world's most prominent thinker on the psychology of work, wrote that the most effective leaders that he had studied had one common attribute.
They all had a high degree of emotional intelligence.
Goleman added that your intelligence quotient or your technical skills are not irrelevant. They do matter, but only as a "threshold capability".
His argument is that you can have the best education in the world, develop an incisive and analytical mind, or have a bank of great ideas, but without emotional intelligence, you will not become a good leader.
Emotional intelligence is defined as your self-awareness in recognising your own moods, and your adeptness in self-regulating personal disruptive impulses.
It also includes your self-motivation that keeps you energised and focused; your capacity to empathise with the emotional temperaments of others; and your social skills at building networks.
In all organised groups, there are people carrying a variety of emotional baggage. This means there are bound to be conflicts. As a leader, you need to exhibit self-awareness by understanding your own drive, and how it affects others.
You must be able to self-regulate by always being thoughtful before taking any action. This leads to integrity, and people see you as trustworthy. This characteristic makes people gravitate towards you, and want to listen to your views.
You need to empathise with people, and understand their emotional make-up. This connects you with others, and consequently you can galvanise them. It helps you find common ground, and build a strong rapport with the people who look to you for leadership.
So, what makes a good leader? It is certainly not just your technical competence!
*The writer is managing consultant and executive leadership coach at EQTD Consulting. He is also the author of the national bestseller 'So, You Want To Get Promoted?'