Transitioning From The Role of Colleague To The Role of Leader

In a recent interview, Joseph Grenny, author of Crucial Conversations, was asked a question about how to successfully deal with the situation of being promoted within a group, so that you become a manager overseeing team members who were once peers.

I feel much more comfortable with authority when I remember that it is not power over but power to. It is not given to me as an intoxicating privilege, but as a special stewardship. When (my colleague) restaurateur Danny Meyer promotes a waiter to manager, he explains that his or her new position is like the gift of fire. "Fire is used in many ways—all analogous to your new duties," he teaches. "Fire can warm. Your duty is to encourage people. Fire is light. Your job is to teach. Fire can cook. Your duty is to strengthen and feed. Fire is a gathering place in many cultures. Your job is to build the team. Fire can also burn. There are rare times when you will need to use your power to give hard feedback. But do so carefully.

This image of 'lighting the fire' is a familiar one for FranklinCovey, and a key definition we use for leadership is 'recognising and affirming someones potential such that they come to see it for themselves'. Our research across millions of team leaders and team members, however, also highlights the issue of managers (and especially new managers) not being strong when it comes to giving and receiving feedback. In this sense, FranklinCovey provides support at both ends of this crucial spectrum to both encourage and inspire while also balancing the 'courage' and 'consideration' needed to provide the (sometimes hard) feedback people need to realise their potential.