Evolving from Management to Leadership

This summary note, based on recent conversations with coaching clients, is useful for any business owner who has grown beyond finding and fixing and is ready for the next stage of development.

 Strategic Leadership

Developing people is your primary work product.

1. Empowering others by holding a space that calls forth excellent performance
2. Being open to & on the lookout for ways the strategic leader is limiting other people’s development, e.g. rescuing and intervening.
3. Remember to share credit and responsibility.

Expecting relevant, actionable reports rather than chasing answers

1. Training and then trusting your people to report also supports their development, i.e., learning which events, changes, and data matter to leadership
2. Makes visible who is up for responsibility–or not

Standing in the future

1. Vision.
2. Strategy
3. Opportunities.
4. Structures.
5. Positioning.

The key is, more and more, stepping out of operations, perhaps by putting someone else in charge of day-to-day, even month-to-month operations.