Finally, you’ve got the job you were after. Your (current, or maybe new) employer has seen in you the characteristics they are seeking for the next level of senior management. Now, you need to work out what those characteristics are.
Maybe you have the support of a mentor or an HR department – of someone who can offer you a clear job description and behavioural competencies. Maybe not. Either way, you can do worse than use the consultant’s old favourite – the two by two grid – to take stock of where you’re starting from on your path to establishing yourself as an effective player in your new job.
It works like this. You create a two by two grid and, along the top, you write (left hand column) “senior managers do” and (right hand column) “senior managers don’t”. On the left hand side you write (top row) “I do” and (bottom row) “I don’t”. Then you can brainstorm, taking care to think about which box each behaviour belongs in. The resulting grid highlights four areas:
- Strengths you can leverage in your new job (top left). These are the behaviours you have already developed that are well matched to your new role;
- Areas for development (bottom left). These are behaviours which, if you invest in developing them, will help to position you in your new role and to increase your personal effectiveness. As it happens, some of them may be quite simple for you to develop – unrealised strengths. Others may be less natural to you;
- Behaviours to let go of (top right). These are things you do and which may have served you well in previous roles. Now though, it’s time to let go of them or to convert them into strengths in your new role. Converting existing behaviours into strengths happens when you are able to take a behaviour to the next level and in this way to adapt it to the needs of your new role;
- No go areas (bottom right). These are things you don’t do and which people in your target role don’t do either. You can ignore them for now – unless they hold some kind of attraction to you. If they do, you may need to find new ways to meet the needs these behaviours have met for you in the past.
Overall, your answers in the grid offer the basis for a quick-view assessment of your readiness to excel in your new job as well as the basis for more detailed developmental planning. I offer an example below – and I wish you success in your new role!
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Senior Managers Do
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Senior Managers Don’t
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I do
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· Establish clear and challenging goals for the area under their control
· Provide clear responsibilities to staff and hold them accountable for results
· Put in place clear processes for managing risk in the team
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· Do things themselves that they could delegate to their staff
· Get lost in the detail of individual initiatives and lose sight of the overall agenda
· Let staff ‘delegate upwards’ and determine the agenda
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I don’t
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· Influence effectively – socialising ideas individually before presenting them at meetings
· Establish a clear vision for their area and communicate it to staff
· Think about who’s best placed to do what in the team and allocate roles or tasks accordingly
· Celebrate success with their staff
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· Take the credit for the work of their staff
· Hang out in the pub with their staff – except on carefully chosen occasions
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