From the Front Line to Leadership: A Journey of Excellence

We work to positively impact, to build our skillset, to recieve recognition and/or create a quality of life for our families. Some just want to acquire a job. Others want to build a career. I decided upon a career. So I needed a plan.

"Business is Not About Brilliance but Relationships, Resillience and Resources." I love to post concise content more than write articles. So this will be brief as I can write at 2 a.m.. But I wanted to share my journey from employee to supervisor to management to leadership (I will leave out the entrepreneurship for now). In the twenty years plus of employment 67% of my employers promoted me a minimum of three times. I had a plan.

Know Thyself. I knew from the beginning I wanted to run the show. Yet I understood my knowledge was limited. So my original emphasis was to learn. I soaked up knowledge from many sources. It was equally important to learn what to do and what not to do. My strength was in developing positive relationships, a quick learning curve and I was very organized. My weakness, I did not take rejection well. I learned to not take rejection as cease and desist but to focus on how my target could benefit. I polished my act.

Valued Employee. My Mom was a task master and I benefited from it. She taught me how to manage my time and produce a good work ethic. Sports taught me to be competitive. I wanted to be the best no matter what they paid me or what title I had. For I knew I was not going to be there long.

My plan as an employee was to acquire cross-training and prove myself valuable. For those employees who were interested I showed them ways to improve their production. In turn I found some skill or knowledge they possessed that they could share with me. Before long I became an influencer upon production. I let it be known that I was interested in supervision opportunities.

Motivating Supervisor: The Golden Rule. Realize this: the best producing employee will often be the worst supervisor/manager if they do not learn to focus on improving others versus their own production and skillset. The supervisor is a training ground for potential opportunities. Yet most companies are more interested in you enforcing the rules and tracking production.

I spent a lot of my time understanding what not to do. I knew that recognition, training and being proactive would lessen tension. But I added one more asset, communication. Once I understood my parameters and objectives - I had a plan. I knew the strengths and weaknesses of each that I supervised. My first goal was to ensure I communicated with my direct in their preferred manner. Then with my staff. Secondly, was to ensure each were trained and given recognition for their achievements. The team was more important than individual goals, so I focused on each helping all. It was vital that I set the tone.

P.S. At this stage I would seek a mentor and a sponsor within the company and I started networking to brand my delivery. In addition, I was still learning. The training that was not provided by the job I sought other avenues: continuing education, mentorship, reading and volunteering.

Proactive Manager: "A problem without a solution is generally seen as a complaint." My mission as a manager was to be proactive from the jump. Understand the company objectives, the niche we focused on, my direct management preference and the strength of my staff. But my strength was in analyzing goals and tasks, creating solutions and/or resources and communicating timelines.

I emphasized being proactive, synergy and work-ethic. Again, I had to set the tone. This time I did not so much involve myself in actual production but training, listening, gathering resources and report managment. I ensured my direct was never surprised and had the solutions, documentation and/or statistics to shine in their meetings.

Not all directs will allow you to shine. That is why I always networked internally and externally. The worse thing an employee can do is to place their career in the hands of one person or department.

Listening to end-users and front-line employees is the a good way to create innovations and solutions. Many companies loved what came out of my reports.

Transformational Leader: "Leadership is not a title but a lifestyle. It is not a crown but a responsibility". Decisions are a major part of leadership. It is important to realize that decisons have far reaching consequences. Critical thinking, golden rule and influence is very important. One of the worst business cultures is one of status quo and non-investment in employees. With that in mind, my focus was first on culture, second on creating employee and customer experiences. Other priorities were eliminating silos, integrating technology, retraining of workers to meet future demands and creating a world class brand.

Transformational leadership is seen as leading by example, earning respect and trust and challenging others to reach within and be the best they can be (excellence). Yet, there are times, depending on the situation, where other leadership styles are more appropriate, especially in times of crisis. You must understand and be confident of your ability to implement various leadership styles.

As a leader I created a vision by listening, garner the resources, measure the progress and ensure the appropriate people are tweaking or pivoting with integrity. There will always be opposition but you are not there to run a popularity contest. Yet to make the best decisions for the sustainability of the company while envisioning a plausible future.

I could go such much deeper. But my point is this: Know yourself, learn, plan, evolve and show your value. Treat people right. Your career will be awesome.

P.S. In this economy you may not keep a job long but you can be highly employable if you work your plan. Remember this: "Business is Not About Brilliance but Relationships, Resillience and Resources."