How to Transition from Manager to Leader

4 Essential Steps for an Easier Leadership Transition

Managers and leaders may sound the same but there are big differences in the roles they play and the people who perform them.

While managers do often lead a team, a leader such as a C-suite professional, has larger responsibilities that go well beyond tasks with predefined goals.

Management is a big responsibility, and a good manager can be the backbone of a business. But if you’re that manager you may have goals beyond your team.

C-suite professionals such as CFO, CMO and CEO handle components of a large business; whereas, smaller companies may only have a CEO with a few managers underneath.

If you’re a small business and growing you may be functioning as a manager, but now that you’re growing you have to start thinking beyond managing your team.

So how does someone move from management to CEO? Strong leadership.

Leadership is a huge topic because of the complexity that goes into being a great leader. Coaching small business owners into being strong leaders takes time, experience, and persistence because of the unseen obstacles that prevent us from really achieving what we want.

Leadership, when moving beyond managing your team, means managing the whole business. Where will you all be in 1 year? What about 5 years? What goals should the entire business have that incorporate the needs of all employees while growing and improving the business?

Discovering the answers to broad questions like these requires a few essential elements:

1. Learn to Be a Leader

   You won’t magically know how to lead a company, so it’s time to start reading, watching, and learning. Podcasts, books, and seminars on leadership are plentiful.

   Learning to be a leader means education, so look for something you know you can commit to and start loving what you learn.

   Some people prefer podcasts so they can listen in their car. Some prefer books for learning while others need personal contact for the information to set in.

   Whatever you choose, don’t make it a task instead of an opportunity or you’ll resent the role you’re getting into before you even get there.

   Don’t be afraid to invest in a coach for yourself because the right one knows how to work with your mindset to remove any limiting beliefs and self-sabotage in addition to helping guide you about the tactical changes you will need to make to become a great leader.

   Personally, when I coach my clients, small business owners rely on over 35 years of experience for what I teach, but how I do it is customized to fit the person I am working with.

2. Define Your Role

   Defining your role as leader means setting expectations. What exactly will be the difference when you’re a CEO and not a general manager?

   Write down your new list of additional or altered responsibilities so you have a clear understanding of what it is you’re going to be doing. Within this, you should make sure to list off all those who you will be delegating various responsibilities to as well as any changes you’ll need to manage those people performing your old duties.

   You’ll never be able to measure your success as a leader if you don’t define what that is to yourself!

   Get in touch with me if you’re having issues defining your role as leader and I’ll help you settle on not just what you need to do, but how you need to do it.

3. Be Prepared to Fail

   Being thick-skinned isn’t as easy as it sounds. The additional demand on you as a leader may not seem like a big deal at first but over time the pressure can mount and eventually it can develop into a big problem.

   Not every item on your agenda will be great and not every point in your plan for your business will come to fruition, so knowing in advance that failure is an option will save your sanity on those dark days.

   Leaders may exude confidence in public but that confidence that’s meant to inspire the rest of the company is not always an accurate reflection of the person’s true state of mind.

   Remember that failure almost always precedes success and treating those failures as learning experiences will arm you with confidence from having faced your fear of failure and kept on trying.

4. Start Leading

   Talking about transitioning from management into a leadership role can be an endless conversation.

   Don’t get stuck in your planning phase and remember steps 1 – 3: learn, set your goals, and don’t be afraid to fail!

If you have any issues with any of these steps and want professional leadership coaching please get in touch with me. I have helped many people just like you take that big step from management to leader and more and I’d love to help you too.