Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the transfer of leadership, and how to best do that when moving from one office to another. As I’m finding out, the transfer of leadership isn’t as straight-forward as the transfer of household goods. I don’t say this in a negative way at all, but more matter-of-factly. Matter of factly…can you say that? Hmmm…not sure. Let me get back to you on that. Anyways, what is becoming readily apparent to me in my short time in my new role is that transferable leadership is more important than I realized. I’ve heard some in leadership circles discuss this topic, but for me it hasn’t truly hit home until now.
I recently listened to a podcast by Craig Groeschel where he argued that trying to lead the same way in one season as you did in a previous season is actually setting yourself up for failure. Hearing him say that really got me thinking about my approach to leadership here at my new office, and it helped me to see that I kinda have to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch in some ways. If this sounds like a negative thing, it's not. Let me explain...
The deal is…no two offices are alike. The makeup of the office, the partners and their needs, staffing levels, likes and dislikes…they all differ. I've been incredibly fortunate to be able to transfer from one good office to another, but that doesn't mean my approach to leadership at ICT will 100% transfer to MHX. We see this play out in sports all the time. We all know that a successful coach on one team doesn't guarantee success with another team. Some coaches simply fizzle after a transfer to a new team, even when both teams were good. I don’t think any leader wants to fizzle, so how do we avoid that? This is the question I’ve been mulling over a lot lately.
My experience in transferable leadership is limited, and I'm still learning, but what others have mentioned, and what I’m seeing play out in my own situation, is that the heart (the WHY) behind leadership doesn’t change, but that the HOW does. The tricky thing is that in many transfer situations, an individual is trying to lead while also trying to figure out which of their approaches to leadership transfer, which ones need to be scrapped, and which ones need a little tweaking. That’s where I’m at right now. I think some of it just comes down to trial and error, while also being cautious not to fall into the trap of “Well, this is how I did it at my last office…”.
Even more foundational to that is something a mentor of mine shared years ago. He told me that people are like banks. You can’t make withdrawals until you’ve first invested. If I could pick a place to start when transferring as a leader, I would start there. As I’ve started in my new role here at MHX, I’ve been challenged to be intentional about investing in the new group of people I am working with. For me that means stopping and taking extra time to just listen. Active listening shows you care…that you want to know about people. It builds trust. And I’m not just talking about kids, pets, and spouses, although that’s a great place to start. But what about the job. What do they like? One of my go-to questions is what type of weather events get them excited. It's a great ice-breaker, but also gives a little insight into their background and what may be driving their goals and aspirations within the field of Meteorology. What I’ve noticed is that oftentimes, as you engage and actively listen on more surface-ish topics, the deeper conversations later follow. Through that process you can really get to know an office – the good things and the challenges, the strengths and potential areas of improvement…what makes the office flow. As you learn those things, you start to see where you fit in with the flow of the office and how to effectively lead within that flow.
By nature, I’m a people person and I enjoy building good work relationships, but I also have this competing tendency to be overly task focused. For me, then, this has required extra effort to prioritize people over tasks (and to not see people as tasks 😊). But, I firmly believe that patience and perseverance will pay off in the end, just like patient investing. That’s why I really like the bank analogy. The only issue I have with that analogy is that it sounds like you are investing with the goal of taking, which is not the goal here. Instead, I would rephrase it a little and say that we should invest with the goal of leading. What I’m realizing (in a positive light) is that the leading will come with time, but for now there will be more listening and learning than leading. Listen first, lead second.
