The Leader Ladder

In this week's "Oh here we grow again", I'm bringing up the thing you jotted down on the very last page of your notebook, so you won't forget about, yet not important enough to make it to your weekly to-do list.

And you know what I'm talking about. On that last page of your notebook, that thing is sitting next to your Windows password you also can't remember (isn't it the 9th password you had to create this year?). Yes, the soft skills you want to develop to propel you toward that promotion you're eyeing up. Going up the leader ladder is for everyone.

Soft vs hard

Why is it that we tend to focus so much on our function's expertise than we downgrade what will fundamentally propel you toward senior positions: leadership soft skills. I really want to emphasize the importance of demonstrating these skills over industry knowledge. The soft stuff is in fact the hardest stuff to hone, and is developed and mastered over time.

63% of millenials say they lack leadership development and feel unprepared to take on new roles.

Nobody can teach us leadership. It's something we have to learn, which comes from experience, practice and reflection. It's like riding a bike. You can read all the books you want and be an expert about the mechanics of it, knowing every single item a bike is made of, learning about speed, terrain, etc...The thing is, you'll only know how to ride it once you hop on it and try it for yourself, fall a couple of times, get back on it and improve over time.

Self-serve pick & mix

Through my job as a leadership coach and trainer, I get to talk to many rising leaders. The traditional grid of pre-defined leader identities is quite outdated and highly unattractive to the growing Millennial workforce. In modern organisations, each leader can build their own identity as a leader, using a Lego brick model. In fact, it is very much in line with the values and expectations that rising leaders have today of leadership, challenging the traditional approaches.

Here are 3 bricks becoming more and more popular in the profile of rising leaders:

1. Unconventional Thinker: challenging the organisation and the status quo to create successes from outside the box approaches. Unconferences have emerged as a "loosely structured conference emphasizing the informal exchange of information and ideas between participants, rather than following a conventionally structured programme of events".
2. Norm Breaker: they strongly believe that value stems from a lack of homogeneity. Recruiting, for example, from all walks of life, from a totally different industry, fosters a diverse eco-system with fresh perspectives, which in turn create big leaps forward for any organisation.
3. Endless Learner: there is a real appetite to learn, ego set aside, and Harvard Business Publishing mentioned that only 40% of Millenials and younger leaders described their organisations' learning and development programs as excellent, compared to 67% of baby boomers.

Be the example you never had.

Combine 1, 2 and 3 and there you have it. We need to be able to provide rising leaders with unconventional learning methods that break the norms. Following the unconference model, should we explore untraining to foster innovation and real change when it comes to learning?

Speak soon on the next "Oh here we grow again" feed!

Mags

Don't be shy, share your thoughts with me: [email protected]

Magali Leroux is the founder of and coach at Starting Blocks Coaching Ltd. With over 16 years of experience in FMCG multinationals across Marketing, Sales, Category Management, she has grown iconic brands, led various amazing teams, her heart remaining with the human side in business. Having experienced the great, the bad and the ugly when it comes to leadership, she founded Starting Blocks Coaching Ltd in 2021 to rebalance it. 1:1 coaching, Team workshops, Leadership sessions are made bespoke and accessible to all.

Heard on the grapevine: “I was lucky enough to have the opportunity of working with Magali at Lindt. Magali was an amazing marketer but I loved seeing how she developed and thrived through a leadership programme. Through Magali’s passion and interest in leadership and coaching, she then went on to facilitate and deliver in house leadership development workshops with me at Lindt where she had a talent for helping people realise their potential. Magali is a natural coach with high EI and the ability to really help people be at their best through careful questioning, challenging and listening. I was so pleased to see her back herself by setting up her own business and throw herself into work she was just set to do! I know that Magali will have made a difference to so many people already and if you are lucky enough to be able to utilise her, you will certainly be glad you did!”

— Jen L, Chief People Officer at Tax Systems