Today’s post relates directly to that sentiment from Kings and Kingmakers, that every leader (at every level) should be developing leaders in their team.
I heard a story the other day about people being promoted to BIG supervisory roles with little or no previous experience of supervising. What I mean by a BIG supervisory role is one where you are supervising other supervisors. So you’ve skipped a level of supervising individual contributors (which is tough in itself), and you are responsible for the development of other supervisors beneath you. And since you don’t know how to supervise yourself, you have a really hard time teaching other supervisors how to manage their people. If you are in this position, I feel for you.
But let’s not fall into victim mode – there are lots of resources that can help you. First and foremost, get learning about how to be the best supervisor you can be. Your promotion was based on your aptitude in managing your work, and now you need to get good at managing people too, so that they can do their best work and their best managing.
Don’t bash yourself over the head for not being perfect immediately – and don’t bash your people over the head for not being perfect either! That’s your job to help yourself and them to get better.
But do aspire to become a Kingmaker. It may take a while, and at times it will be hard, but it’ll be worth it in the end, as you see the legacy you are leaving.
Oh, and for those of you who ARE supervisors of other supervisors, and you DO have experience as a supervisor, don’t forget to develop those supervisors as managers of people. If they are new supervisors, they will be a little lost and will need help to make the transition from individual contributor to people manager. This is a big leap, and you cannot hope that they will be perfect right from the start. You can use your weekly meetings with them to not only talk about their own work, but also how they are managing their team members.
