For the past thirty years, I’ve been helping people to deal better with, and even capitalise on, the process of transition. As I use that term, it doesn’t mean the same thing as change. Change is a situational shift, often an event. Moving to a new city, getting married, being promoted, losing a parent... those are changes. Transition is the reorientation and renewal process that you go through when you encounter a change. Change is external, transition is internal. It is the transition that brings people out of the situation with new behaviour, a new outlook, and a new identity. And if they don’t have those things, the change is stillborn.
One of the changes where the transition is most often overlooked is triggered off by the promotion to a leadership position. Like any transition, this one must go through three predictable phases:
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First, the manager must let go of the old ways of doing and being. |
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Second, the manager must get through a confusing in-between time ('the neutral zone') when things aren’t the old way any more, but haven’t become an identifiable and comfortable new way yet either. |
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Then, third, the manager must become the new person—'a leader'—that the new situation demands. |
Ending, neutral zone, new beginning: this three-part process must occur if the change is to work. Here are seven tips for making the transition more likely to occur and less confusing:
1. Distinguish between change and transition
Begin by distinguishing between the change, defined by the details of the new position, and the transition, which represents the three-phase process of coming to terms with the new position and the demands that it makes on the person. The change starts with something new, but the transition starts with letting go of the old way of handling situations and the old identity that came from that way.
2. Decide just what you have to let go of
Otherwise you, or whoever is in transition, will drag old and no-longer-relevant ways of doing things into the new situation. One of the roles that a leader has is to help people by articulating just what it is time to let go of in this particular transition. That not only gets the transition going; it also assures that people let go of the right things. Without such guidance, some will let go of too much and some not enough.
3. Allow time for the transition
Although the change may happen quickly, one day you’re a manager, the next you’re a leader, the transition will take much longer. Much of that time will be spent in what I call the neutral zone, a sort of no-man’s land between the old outlook and the new one. While it’s a good idea to keep the change moving along quickly, you mustn’t rush through the neutral zone because that is where the real transformation of 'manager' into 'leader' takes place.
4. Help the process along
Most people look back at the neutral zones of their lives, though they seldom call them by that name, as the times when (almost without their awareness) something new and important was starting to take shape. This process can be helped along. Ask yourself how your sense of purpose is changing. Are your values the same as they always were or are they changing in subtle ways? The neutral time is the natural time for stocktaking, for realistic self-assessment, and for updating the once useful but now outmoded assumptions, dreams, and beliefs in your life.
5. Be realistic
Throughout the transition, but especially in the neutral zone, make sure your goals and output-expectations are realistic. When you are in transition, nothing sinks you faster than expecting yourself to turn out huge amounts of work when your energy and your effectiveness are compromised by what you are going through. You don’t have to give up on either the quality or quantity of what you do, just don’t promise things that you can’t deliver.
6. Identify the characteristics of a leader
Create for yourself a personal checklist of the actual behaviours and the attitudes that you want to demonstrate in your new role as a 'leader'. Too often, leadership becomes a cliché for a mysterious quality that makes things happen. Demystify it. Cut it up into specific, bite-size chunks.
7. Capture the learning
Build yourself a record of this transition. The idea is to learn from what you are going though. Besides, this isn’t the last transition you are going to go through in your career. So keep track of what you are learning: What helped you and what hindered you in this transition? What would you do differently another time? Understanding those things will make future transitions much easier.
If you can follow these tips, your chances of making the critical transition from manager to leader will increase considerably. Otherwise, people will say, "I guess that s/he just wasn’t leadership material". But that won’t be the case. You just didn’t know how to get through such a big transition
A question to ask yourself:
What might be the most revolutionary idea I can think of to impact for me or my organisation?
Closing thought:
Research repeatedly shows that the biggest difference between creative and non-creative thinkers is the time that people spend developing their mindset and planning in quality thinking time. When you next open your diary or planner, or consider the next meeting you are attending, look at the amount of time you have planned in for generating possibilities and thinking creatively. If you can’t see any, make a difference now and book yourself some time for innovation.
A question to ask yourself:
What have I learned from the transitions I have experienced?
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