Hey, everyone, welcome to another Ask Katrina today the question is Katrina, why am I sucking so bad? In this new leadership role? Probably not the nicest way to say it. But that’s exactly how the question came in. Right? And so you got to say it the way it came in, because you feel the pain when you say it that way, right? I think we’ve all been there. We’ve all been at this place in our lives in some capacity, whether it was work or a relationship, or being a parent, or being a coach on a kid’s team, doesn’t matter. We’ve all faced a situation where prior to stepping into whatever that role is, we were okay, we felt pretty good about ourselves. We were doing pretty well. And then we stepped into something new. And we’re like, holy crap, what have I done? Why have I done this to myself? How do I get out of this? How do I fix it as quickly as possible, right? Normal human situation? Well, the reality of this situation is, is what we talk about here all the time. Anytime you’re moving into a leadership role, there’s going to be change. Now if you go from like a frontline individual to like, assistant manager to manager to director to senior director, right, you climb the ladder, that’s sort of typically the flow and the typical titles of an average organization, those bumps are pretty small. Yes, probably the biggest jump that are to one is whenever you go from Doer to leader, okay, and the next big job that’s equally as big as from director or senior director to the executive level, okay. And the reason why those two are critically important, and they’re so, so large, in the jump right in the shift in what you’re doing is because from doer, frontline doer, to then leader of other doers, Frontline, right, assistant manager manager, that’s important, because that’s where you first start to learn to lead through other people. Right, stead of being the doer, you’re the leader and the teacher of the doers. That can be hard. It’s a process, you have to learn that. But typically, again, that’s the first step that we have in our leadership, career or professional career. And so that happened a long time ago, right? I mostly speak to women, women, it takes us on average, 10 years to reach the executive ranks. Okay, well, we got probably promoted to that first manager level roles. The first one, two years, we were working for the organization, or the first one or two years that we were in our professional careers. That was a long time ago. Now we go to the executive level. And again, it’s another growth, it’s another shift. I’m not being the doer of of the leadership team anymore, right, where I’d roll up my sleeves and help still exec or I’m sorry, execute, rather, I’m still executing. And I’m being involved in those decision making conversations. And I’m actually creating the process of the way in which we’re going to go do, I may not be doing but I’m creating the process of doing. When I reached the executive level, I stopped creating the process of doing that’s what my team is for, right? I have to get out of that mindset and go to the next level of leadership, which is 100% influence 100%, in negotiating building rapport trust, in being able to drive change solely through having discussions and trusting and knowing that the individuals that report to me are developed enough and ready to make all the decisions they need to make so that I can be in the meetings, creating the strategy, the vision, and all of the other things that only I can do. So the reason that typically we feel like we are sucking at this shift is because we’re going through one of these big shifts, typically into that executive ranks, right? I talk to a lot of executives, that’s who I speak to. So that’s a huge shift, we have to stop talking about how to fix a process. And we have to start talking about is this the right process? Is this the right business we need to be in? Where are we going 510 years from now? That is huge. And so in other words, what made me successful throughout my entire career is not going to make me successful as an executive. I can’t keep building on the building blocks that got me into the executive ranks. That’s where people fail. They think that this work before it helped me succeed and all these other roles. It’s going to help me here. It may help you in some conversations with your direct reports. It’s not going to help you in the meetings that you have to have as part of the board with your peers, driving strategy influencing other people and changing the face of the business. Okay, you have to learn a new skill set. That’s why you feel like you’re sucking because you haven’t created the flex of that muscle, the muscles weak, you’ve never developed it, you gotta get it in the leadership gym, you’ve got to build the muscle, you got to learn how to do it. And you can’t go to the gym when you feel like you want to. Because you’re never going to get in shape. You’ve got to stop the old habits, you got to stop the old way of doing thing. Things you’ve got to get in the gym, you’ve got to start lifting the weights, you got to become the leader at the executive level. And you’ve got to learn how to do that. And you’re not going to be great at it the first time or the second time, or maybe even the third time. But the more you do it, you will become great. But you have to commit to doing it. And you have to be okay with feeling like you’re you’re sucking and you have to embrace the suck in order to navigate it through. It’s a little bit of a test of your character, but you can do it. And that’s how you can overcome it. Okay, if you’d like for me to come and share this insight with your team, do some team training speak at an event please send me an email info at legend leaders.com I’d love to learn more about your team and your event and see how I can support you.
