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The Journey Begins

Great leadership takes place every day, in the smallest of ways.

So, now you're in charge.

When you accepted your first leadership job – or even seriously considered putting your hat in the ring – you took one of the most important and courageous steps in your career. You're a boss! You're going places.

How's it going? Are you sure? How do you know?

Chances are, you're perched precariously on an emotional range from “awkward excitement” to “abject terror” and back again, with a constant baseline of “stressed.” This shouldn't come as a surprise; you have a lot to prove. (Or, if you've been in the position for a while, you might have a lot to repair.) For over 45 years, our firm, DDI, has been an innovator in the field of talent management, which is a fancy way of saying that we help companies transform the way they hire, promote, and develop leaders. This book is based on what we've learned from developing more than eight million frontline leaders over four decades, in virtually every country and industry around the world. First-time leaders who transition well are more able to make a positive, lasting impact on their teams, families, and careers. Our approach helps people become engaged and more productive more quickly.

Speaking of stress, our research shows that a transition to a leadership position is among life's most challenging adjustments, ranking somewhere between personal illness and managing teenagers. In fact, only one in three leaders in our first transitional study felt they were effective in handling transitional challenges.1 For first-timers, the stress can be particularly acute. You are taking on not only a new type of role, but also one that exists in a business environment defined by fast-moving challenges: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. And you're in a unique position where your performance – or lack thereof – will determine whether your team will thrive or stall (along with your career). Are you as good as you need to be? Do you know what it means to get the best work from the people on your team? Will they hate you on sight? How will you determine if you're on track before it's too late?

The transition you're experiencing is profound enough for us to make a bold claim: Nobody comes to his first leadership position knowing everything he needs to know to succeed. When you get into truly unfamiliar emotional territory, your instinct might be to throw up your hands and try to do everything yourself. Perhaps you'll micromanage your team, take critical assignments away from direct reports as deadlines loom, or fail to give the kind of feedback that will help your team members do their jobs.

But let us make another bold claim: You'll find few greater rewards in your career than on the leadership journey you're about to begin. What you learn will transform the rest of your life in many wonderful ways. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is what you'll discover about your own ability to grow and be effective in the world. We believe that over time, the skills you'll learn can help you communicate more clearly with the people you love, become a more active member of your community, and make a difference for the causes you care about. This is a journey that leads to a happier life.

When I first got the job, there was a lot of pressure, Karen told us. She became a leader by surprise and default when her own supervisor took ill and needed an extended leave. Karen was an expert telecommunications engineer, but she suddenly had 30 more-senior people to manage and a big project to finish. I could tell that there was a lot of skepticism about me. And there already had been many failures in the project, like when a contractor failed to deliver. But Karen was able to find effective ways to get the work done – on time! – through the people around her, and has earned the respect of her peers. It has been the most gratifying thing! I was able to help them work well, and I still felt like myself. And we've been able to deliver a lot, and move the project to the next level. And now the whole company knows who our team is. Best of all, she now looks at her life differently. I learned I could be a real leader. I can make a contribution in lots of places.

Joe, a supervisor in a landscaping business, learned that deep satisfaction comes from being a key part of helping others reach their true potential. The very thing that is satisfying to me is watching the guys under me grow, he said. Joe had been unable to find a job in teaching, and instead worked his way up in a national landscaping company. Many of his direct reports were untrained, non-native English speakers, and their work could be a gateway to better things for them. That's when he realized that he had a role to play in their lives. I saw the other supervisors, and all they want to do is show up every day, do the work, and go home. But Joe saw an opportunity to share what he knew about leadership and business and to develop his team in a deeper way. I got dirty with them in the field, worked with them side by side. They began to trust me. And now I'm in a position to really watch them develop. Now I see that leadership goes back to the very reason I was interested in teaching in the first place.

The real opportunity of leadership, as we see it, is a deeply human one. But precisely because humans are involved, lots of things can go wrong. As an example of the type of challenge you may encounter in your first leadership role, meet John, 42, an urban planner. I got ambushed! he says of his most problematic direct report. John ran a loosely knit team of eight, but it was one young engineer who derailed him. And he didn't see it coming. She gave me no feedback of any kind. And then called me the worst boss in the world. It was John's first attempt at leading a team – something he knew pretty well. Or, so he thought. He'd worked well as an individual contributor on interdisciplinary teams, and like most people, had strong feelings about what a leader should and shouldn't do.

At first he was hands-off, figuring that everyone liked to work independently. I don't like working for people who are looking over my back all the time. So my approach was “you go do your thing, and I'll come to you when there's a problem.” When he felt the need to give input, I came in and took over, and it seemed like micromanaging. But nobody said anything to me. Until his six-month performance review. I was completely shocked when my boss told me what she [the young engineer] had said. Her complaints: John didn't set priorities, didn't pay attention to her work, took projects away from her with no explanation, and focused only on his own work. John realized too late that his hands-off style had backfired. And waiting for her to tell him what she needed out of a boss? I was told that because I was more senior, I should have known better. And I think that's right.

In our experience, it takes about 6 to 12 months for a new leader to hit stride or hit the skids. And that's exactly what happened to John. And once a major problem occurs, it might be hard to find the advocates you'll need to turn things around.

WE ASKED, LEADERS ANSWERED @Twitter

Q: The first time you managed people (not just a project) the emotion you felt was.. ? #leadership

@nilofer awkwardness

@TonyTSheng terror that i would be revealed as not knowing what i was doing. Which i didn't. lol

@Mallory_C nervous that I would royally screw it up and be that awful, clue-less boss – always want it to be a productive experience.

@BigM5678 Overwhelmed. Many years passed before I could delegate w/o feeling I should be doing it myself or it's not going to be right.

This book is targeted to what we believe is the most critical role in any organization, the frontline leader. You're more important than you might think! And now, you're in a unique position to positively impact your entire company by working productively not only with your team, but also with other supervisors, peers in other departments, customers – everyone.

We can help you answer important questions about your ability to lead before you misstep. We can help you experience the joy of leadership sooner by managing the real and powerful human emotions that can block your success. And we'll show you how to master the new skills leaders need to work effectively, such as coaching others, engaging people, delegating, tapping into your new network, hiring, and even running a meeting.

We wrote this book to help you master your new leadership role more quickly, while avoiding some of the headaches and heartaches many people experience. And for those of you who may have already made some key mistakes, we can help you put things back on track.

“Frontline,” “First-Time” – What's in a Label?

Throughout this book, we use the terms frontline leaders and first-time leaders interchangeably. First-time is fairly straightforward, referring to people either in their first leadership job, or those pondering a move into one. Frontline is more about the level of leadership. A frontline leader directly manages individual contributors. This leaves out higher-level employees, like middle managers or senior executives, who manage other leaders. Other terms for frontline leaders include supervisor, team leader, foreman, or manager.