<div>Many call this a factor of a fast growing economy, many call it being at the right place at the right time. But I too was among the bright, young, hardworking high performers who got promoted to a managerial post rather early in the career. I still remember that day when our names were announced, I was on cloud nine and like many others who got promoted young, I too was a victim of “I have arrived syndrome”. The thought of how to lead a team never occurred to me. By then I had seen many team leads doing it and I had my version of doing it the right way. Completely unaware that I had a huge blind spot as far as my capacity for leading a team and managing people goes.<br /><br />As days passed by, yester years' good performer became an average performer and I was left wondering what had gone wrong? By the third month, the heat was on me. My manager was knocking my doors for better performance. The only training I ever received back then was on conducting performance review just at the start of our new financial year. The famous “Sandwich Feedback” was fairly simple concept to understand and I started doing reviews right, left and center. Finished 12 member team review in three days. Spoke some good stuff to them, then gave them hard feedback on things they were not doing and then again some pep talk at the end. <br /><br />In my review with my manager, I was often told to coach my team members. Not knowing too much on what exactly coaching is, coaching a team member meant to me makeing him sit for an hour and telling him how I was a great associate and how he needed to change things he was not doing well and get on board quickly.<br /><br />Good or bad / right or wrong – no one ever told me or rather it never occurred to me to seek feedback on how was I doing.<br /><br />Today, when I look back at those days, I laugh and tell myself “Now that was just not the way I wanted it to be.” But what option did I have? <br /><br />According to the First Rung Study conducted by DDI in India, one in four leaders at the frontline are promoted because they are technically superior and they learn to become better leaders by trial and error. While almost half of them learn it on the job, a good question to ask is, What is at stake?<br /><br />Visualise the confidence of the young, dynamic high performer, moving from all time high feeling to one of the toughest roles. He never thought that this one could be hitting him hard. To top it off, he was asked to swim alone in the choppy waves of leadership. It indeed does some damage to him and more so to his team which lacks direction and leadership. This is where the manager of this young leader plays a key role. More than 2/3rd of the times, it’s the manager who has a critical role in helping these young leaders shape their development. More than half the times either managers and young leaders don’t have a written development plan in place or young leaders don’t have enough time to focus on their development.<br /><br />“With great power, comes greater responsibility” – all know that’s what uncle Ben told Spiderman. I often use this line while speaking with young leaders. The responsibility to develop ourselves as leaders at any level rests in our hands and the hands of managers above us. We often get caught in the storm of things so much that we don’t get time for the single most important job we are entrusted by our organisation and that is to lead and develop people. <br /><br />So the next question is what can we do to help these leaders?<br />In our experience, organisations swing at either end of the pendulum. Few, over- engineer the development process and few don’t develop them at all. Both are not the best ways to do it. One has to strike the right balance. Hence, it becomes imperative to identify few critical competencies which are relevant for the role and also highly developable in nature.<br /><br />(<em>The author is Key Member Leadership, Development Dimensions international (DDI). The article is based on the report – “Finding the First Rung Leaders in China and India”)<br /></em></div>
