July 03, 2008
Leadership Tip
A Fresh Start
In the seminars I teach, I see many people new to the role of supervision and management. Recognize that every time you leave one position to take another, it is an opportunity for a fresh start in the way you lead people. Reality is that it’s an opportunity for you to reinvent yourself. We have all made mistakes in our approach to leading and managing people, even as informal leaders who may not have been in a supervisory role until now. Hopefully, we learned from our mistakes. Leave the baggage behind.
When you were a technician, recognition of those skills may have gotten you into a managerial or supervisory role. Now things have changed. Realize each step you climb on the corporate ladder often takes you further and further from the technical skills that you started with. The focus becomes human and conceptual skills. Be a constant learner to help reinvent yourself. Remember that leading and managing people is about building relationships with them, and understanding what motivates them. Take the servant leadership approach, you are there for the sake of your people. You must guide them, nurture their development, and sometimes, do their bidding for them.
Tip provided by Jeff Shiver, CMRP, CPMM
People and Processes
