talent management
New Management
Have you ever heard a senior leader say this before: “I
can’t believe how much that person is struggling since
I put them in a leadership role, they seemed to have
management-material written all over them.”
Or have you ever heard a person who is relatively new to man-agement
say something like this: “I waited for my whole career for
a leadership opportunity like this, but now that I’m managing peo-ple,
I’m starting to question if I have what it takes.”
All too often the careers of new managers fall apart, to the sur-prise
of themselves and to those who put them in their role. They
seem full of leadership potential yet fail to deliver on this poten-tial
once given the opportunity to lead. There are a lot of reasons
that this can happen, but the most predictable reason that the
careers of new managers fail to launch is due to three unavoid-able
tensions:
■■ Control versus empowerment
■■ Being a boss versus being a friend
■■ Part versus whole
When managers focus on
the organizational whole
instead of only their
direct reports, everyone
succeeds
THE THREE TENSIONS EVERY NEW MANAGER MUST LEARN TO MANAGE
By Tim Arnold
THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE
VALUES OF CONTROL AND
EMPOWERMENT ARE OFTEN
IN UNHEALTHY TENSION
WITH ONE ANOTHER.
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