How to Make Your First Leap Into Leadership

For many years a favourite question I have been asked, especially by those I mentor is..

How do I get someone to give me my first line management job?

This article outlines the concepts and ideas I have shared with others. I don’t profess to be a guru. The principles below are a combination of the suggestions passed on to others based on my own personal experiences as an aspiring leader, both good and bad.

I’ve been told many times how helpful this advice has been and I’ve finally decided I should write it down.

I’ve helped many people over the years make this first step into leadership. I’ve also persuaded a few people not to.

If you agree and see something of yourself in the four ‘leadership animals’ then leave a comment or a story of your own.

My answer has evolved since I took that first step in 2001. My first line management job was as a graduate trainee. I was terrible at managing people. I hated every minute of it.

If you are reading this and experienced one of my many prototype versions of the leader I’ve been constructing, I can only apologise if you got a dodgy edition!

My entire philosophy about leadership has changed dramatically in the last 19-years. I don’t know why I’d spend a working day doing anything but helping people move forward, feel inspired or be their best self.

To those that ask me, ‘how do I get into leadership?’ the answer you’ll always get is simple.

Why?

If you’re intrigued by that question then here are the steps I guide others to take. Follow these steps wisely and I promise you that leading, supporting and developing others will be the wildest, most exhilarating rollercoaster ride you’ll ever take. You’ll watch people grow knowing that their future development will be part of your own legacy.

You’ll also have days when the people you lead do the craziest things and your forehead will show the blemishes of many hand slaps of despair.

It’s not all thrills and spills. Hollywood skips the part where Al Pacino has to sit preparing for 25 end of year performance reviews in his home office the day after that stirring speech in the 1999 film, "Any Given Sunday".

First line management roles are often heavily supervisory in nature. I’d imagine that the part where Tom Hanks had to proof read his Toy Marketing team’s presentation pitch was cut out of the final edit in the 1988 film, "Big". Long before the era of death by PowerPoint.

If you’re reading this article because you want some advice about how to ace the job application for your first line management job then there are some tips in here that may help you too.

Values, Potential & Desire

Why you? I ask those I mentor the same thing because as a hiring manager I look for leaders with the right values, potential and desire.

The number one reason why people get hired - the people who will probably beat you into second place in the interview - is that they evidence how they would thrive in the role 6-months from now. The past is history. It doesn’t get you the next job on its own.

Experience is a tick box that recruiters and Applicant Tracking Software may require. When it comes down to the art of persuasion - the hiring manager interview - then vision is key.

Competency based interviews focus on past examples. As a hiring manager I need you to solve my dilemma. I have a vacancy or a gap to fill. I want to fill it well.

That gap exists and it’s draining me, my team and my business of value. Most likely, the value has been draining since the last person decided to leave.

I’m also driven by a desire not to have to recruit again for a while. Hiring is just as nervous a process for the employer as the prospective employee. Bad choices are a costly mistake.

That’s why the best candidates should pitch themselves beyond past experience to prove why they are the best candidate. I want to see a vision of you succeeding 6-months from now.

First attempts are often failures.

My first management job was to lead a team of six banking clerks, all old enough to be my mother, all wise enough to run rings around me.

Barely out of university, I was hired by a global bank into a lucrative management development programme. The fruits of a good business degree, a private education, more than a year of really good and relevant work experience including a year of accountancy, two summers working unpaid in an office at a local manufacturing plant, a handful of low paid jobs in pubs and night clubs and a summer coaching tennis to kids in Pennsylvania.

My parents worked hard to give me a great start in life. Very hard. The six colleagues who worked for me in 2001 didn’t see that.

My mistake was to let my own biases rule how I led others. I was awful at that job. I thought leadership was a badge I was entitled to. In my naive, arrogant mind their place in my legacy would be to experience the early years of my path to greatness. Or so I thought!

I’m not exactly sure what my management philosophy was back then. I think it was to teach and inspire. I certainly tried to do a lot of the latter. I also actively avoided anything that could be termed as management. To this day I don’t think I could tell you whether any of them got better results during my tenure. I had no technical guidance to offer them because I didn’t spend any time observing what they did with their customers.

There would be occasional flashes of inspiration and my intent was always to help. I learnt that I was good at breaking down problems. My team liked me for that. As my good intentions broke down barriers the looks I often got back were more aligned to pity - ‘oh bless him, he thinks I’m going to follow his advice’ - than loyalty.

Are your toes curling yet at this appalling tale of mismanagement? Mine are.

Failure is inevitable. History proves this. Species fail. Businesses have a life span. Products too. Why should we be so arrogant as to assume that failure can be avoided. Careers don’t fail. However, failure is commonplace during one.

Your values are what should help you determine if leadership is for you.

What is driving your desire to lead others? What are the attributes of a ‘management’ job that appeal? Here are four personas I have encountered during my career that you may identify with.

I have no desire to deter or obstruct anyone who wants to try a leadership role but my hope is that these make you think and help you define what kind of leader you want to be and why you are motivated to do it.

The Angry Aardvark

High accountability, low empathy

Angry Aardvark doesn’t get far past the A-Z guide to leadership in their research and development. They got to ‘Authority’ and ‘Boss’ and liked the esteem that comes with hearing others call them that. It has a nice ring to it. C for coaching sounded a bit long winded and once D for delegation was understood then the book was put down before realising that Empathy, Equality, Fairness and Support were on the later pages.

The harsh reality is that Aardvarks often deliver good results as managers. Immediate results win plaudits and hide a multitude of sins. They work out quickly that when you manage a team you can’t do their work for them.

The lack of empathy means that results trump ‘softer’ and more sustainable attributes such as engagement, equality, sharing and democracy.

Aardvarks don’t win friends and their influence long-term can often dwindle. They often make very good business leaders and it’s fair to say that succeeding in business isn’t a popularity contest.

If you identify as an Aardvark you might not read any further. Let’s be honest, you probably haven’t got time for LinkedIn as the world only revolves around you.

Before you dismiss the concept of the Aardvark, consider what causes the empathy bypass. Leadership is a wild ride because there can be many ups and downs.

The brand of ‘boss’ (a word I personally detest) is rarely associated with popularity. I can think of many ‘tough’ line managers who I have huge respect for.

One of the values to consider when looking at becoming a leader is whether you have the edge that is required to handle the difficult conversations. Interim roles are often a first taster of line management. So is deputising when your line manager is away.

What these roles don’t give is an opportunity to do the challenging parts of leadership. Full accountability for decision making. Performance reviews and pay decisions. Letting someone go. Choosing who gets the job.

Leadership can be lonely. Consider what created the Angry Aardvark. Was the empathy drained out by the role or did it just never surface?

I wouldn’t deter anyone from wanting to lead others as a pathway to bigger scale opportunities. Recognise the values that drive you and consider how to gain or recruit the empathy of others to ensure you mitigate your own weaknesses. Otherwise you won’t be a ‘boss’ many look back on fondly.

Aardvark’s often show a ruthless streak that’s founded in insecurity. Why do they yell at or intimidate co-workers? A lack of emotional intelligence means they lack the ability or desire to define what others need or understand what drives their behaviour.

Engaging others is seen as a project, a communications campaign, a score on the people section of their balanced scorecard, an opportunity to share more about ‘me’. When engagement doesn’t come from others and employee survey results are disappointing the answer is to blame others. It certainly can’t be the Aardvark’s fault.

Nurse Narwhal

Low accountability, high empathy

Those of you who shuddered at the thought of working for an Aardvark - perhaps you already do - may assume that empathy is the answer.

Not in isolation.

After my first encounter with leadership I sought out jobs that didn’t let me suffer the pain of trying to motivate others.

Then I attended a training course about coaching for high performance based on the principles developed by Steven A in his book of the same name.

Coaching is a phrase that is often misunderstood and I won’t attempt to describe the concepts in detail here. My own realisation though was that coaching is based on an understanding of basic human psychology. Humans don’t like being told what to do. Our natural instinct is to reject instruction unless we have no prior knowledge or awareness of how to undertake a task.

The first time we sit in the drivers seat of a car, we cling to instruction out of pure self-preservation. Just as we hang on our parents every word when we first handle a sharp knife in the kitchen, light a gas hob or open a hot oven door.

Yesterday you undertook activities at work where you have some experience and confidence in your own abilities. You wouldn’t thank your boss for a wake up call in case you didn’t turn up on time. You didn’t need to press F1 to work out how to send an email. You probably got irritated at the fridge when it beeped to remind you to shut the door!

My first encounter with coaching transformed my opinion on what leading others could do for both me and those I worked alongside.

I became so obsessed with the power of open questions, goals and realities that I became a coaching bore.

The root causes of other people’s behaviour were fascinating to me. I realised I had a talent for understanding others - I just hadn’t engaged my ears properly before.

My challenge was that I understood what others needed to do. Intimately. They just didn’t do anything about it. I found I was having the same conversations. Over and over again.

The actions at the end of 121s were twice as likely to have my initials against them as the person who really needed to act.

Nurse Narwhal was the new drug. The problem was that my patients never left the treatment table. Symptoms festered. Results didn’t arrive. My personal capacity was constantly running dry and eventually I was under serving members of my team. Arriving late because previous 121s overran.

My high support style wasn’t for everyone either. High achievers felt a lack of empowerment. They wanted a situational leader. One who grants them the space to experiment, fail and learn for themselves.

Under performers were sapping my energy and good intent.

My time was so devoted to developing others that I didn’t make time for the development of my business. I couldn’t see the wood for the trees and priorities such as understanding customers, market trends, engaging stakeholders and embedding change were getting ignored.

The angry aardvarks would sneer at the coaching bore.

What’s the point?

The results didn’t lie. Lots of effort but my obsession with the long game meant that stakeholders increasingly questioned the viability of my strategy.

Employee engagement would be excellent. Customer results were consistent but outcomes left me stuck in a rut of mediocrity.

I know lots of Narwhals. They’re great people to work with. You rarely find yourself working for them though.

Exhausted Elephants

Low accountability, low empathy

Daniel Goleman (2) has written many outstanding articles on emotional intelligence (EQ).

His theories broke down some myths I believed about empathy and perhaps explain why few people will recognise that their shortfall in leadership might be more to do with a lack of empathy than accountability.

The first sign I look for when I ask someone I mentor, “Why leadership?’ Is that they want to serve others.

The subtle difference between serve and ‘help’ is often misunderstood. People who are driven to help others usually do so by taking on tasks and activities.

Serving others is about meeting their needs. Goleman describes cognitive empathy, an ability to identify what others need. The answer a leader arrives at shouldn’t be, ‘let me do that for you’.

Ken Blanchard (3) puts this far more eloquently in his book, “The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey”. Yes, animals are a popular analogy in the leadership world!

A mentee that I approached several years ago about becoming a leader once told me that the reason they hadn’t considered it is because they didn’t like the hours.

When I asked her what she meant by that, she referenced the fact that I and her line manager often sent emails late at night. A young mother herself, long hours weren’t something she could commit to.

My drastically improved work-life balance owes a lot to that comment. That wake up call helped me a lot. She also turned out to be a fantastic leader. She still is.

Exhausted elephants have wonderful intent. They want to lead because they want to help others.

They also can’t see the big, heavy weight of others slowing them down each time the answer they derive is, ‘let me do that’.

Delegation is a critical skill great leaders posses. Aardvarks often confuse it with abdication. They also commonly delegate the work but not the credit.

Delegation keeps great leaders light, agile and focusing their energy on the next issue or opportunity.

What defines whether you can avoid helping and start serving others is the ability to determine what your colleague needs.

What is the elephant in the room? What root cause sits beneath the issue or problem before them. How can you intervene through great coaching to serve up that Eureka moment where they lean forward, smile and say, “I know what I need to do”.

The fourth and final persona is the one where I’m going to leave it for you to decide.

If you read this article and chose leadership because Angry Aardvark will do then I’m amazed you got to the end of the article in which case you’re maybe not as interested in sucking up the ants as you first thought!

If you’re an Elephant then the chances are that you read this article because you hate your job, you chose leadership already, it’s late and you are reading LinkedIn because procrastination is easier than looking in the mirror at your Trunk.

If you’re a Narwhal - many people have no idea what one is so they probably searched it on Google - then you’ve hopefully finally seen the point.

What animal do you think defines the ultimate leader? What does great look like? Why do you want to be one?

If you have followed the concept so far then your realisation is that it’s a combination of high accountability, high empathy.

I and others could define in more detail what this means, what it looks like and what else we could throw into the melting point. My hope is that this article has inspired you to start working that out for yourself. The best part of mentoring others is what they teach you in return.

One of the highlights of my career to date was coaching tennis at a children’s summer camp in Pennsylvania in 1998. The children I met that summer ranged from aged 6-16 and they taught me far more about myself than I suspect I taught in return. What I also learnt is that when I practise what I recommend to others, I get much much better too.

I’ve had the good fortune to work for and alongside some great leaders. Better still, I’ve seen so many good and not so good ones that my answer would probably be a new creature made up of the best bits of all of them.

If the answer is looking back at you in the bathroom mirror. If you identify with the values of what makes a great leader. If you have the desire to serve others. If you can see your own potential and are willing to fail to get there....

I hope you are roar-some!

Martin Baker, 20 December 2020

All opinions and concepts shared in the aboive article are my own and in no way intended to represent those of my employer

References

1. Aardvark concept originality. https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2007/07/11/the-aardvark-in-the-boardroom/ - this article references Aardvark as a synonym of the metaphorical idiom ‘Elephant in the room’ and was researched to prove the originality of the above concept which is (c) Martin J. Baker, 2020

2. Daniel Goleman on Emotional Intelligence - the five components of emotional intelligence at work, as developed by Daniel Goleman. Goleman is a science journalist who brought "emotional intelligence" on the bestseller list and has authored a number of books on the subject, including "Emotional Intelligence," "Working With Emotional Intelligence," and, lately, of "Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. There is an excellent overview of the concept with other references to Peter Salovey and John Mayer here https://web.sonoma.edu/users/s/swijtink/teaching/philosophy_101/paper1/goleman.htm

3. Ken Blanchard - The One Minute Manager Meets The Monkey (29 Nov 2000) is one worthy of any budding leader’s bookshelf or you may also find the synopsis on this YouTube video helpful. https://youtu.be/EvUrXkgwdyo