Moving from manager to director is one thing, but there are unique
challenges and considerations when it comes to moving from manager
into director in the same company.
Picture this, you've been working in the same company for a while.
It could be decades, it could be more.
And you've been operating at a senior management.
You've been established as a manager, and maybe some of your higher ups have been talking to
you about the ascension into director level positions, and maybe some
of them have even been grooming you to take on that role.
And you yourself, you see there are opportunities for growth.
You see there are opportunities to take on bigger responsibilities.
But the challenge is how do I get there?
How do I ensure that I have the right experience?
How can I ensure I can do the job well, in director?
And more importantly, how can I ensure that I have the time?
Because your current projects are taking up so much of your time, your
responsibilities and execution and implementing ideas is taking up so
much of your time that when it comes to taking on higher level
strategic leadership and higher level visionary responsibilities, you don't have
the time or the energy to take that on.
And this is the biggest challenge I see when it comes to moving from
manager to director within the same company, is that there's a lot of
time and energy that needs to be devoted to higher level strategy, to
being involved in executive level, director level decisions, that your current implementation and
execution tasks as a manager are so time consuming.
They are also mentally and intellectually time consuming and
energetically consuming, that how do we jump up into that role?
How do we smoothly transition to a higher level role like that?
So in this video, what I want to share with you is some key
considerations.
There is unique challenges.
There are unique considerations for this.
And what are they and how can you implement that in your career growth
right now?
When a company is growing, the first thing that you experience is that
there are opportunities that open up, opportunities to step up in
higher level positions.
And you might also see a shift in leadership.
Someone that was, once your manager steps up into a higher level
position as well, and leadership starts to move upwards as well.
And you might see a lot of transitions, promotions, people taking on
bigger responsibilities.
You might see that, but what may be difficult to see is the reason why
that happens.
And the reason why is because when an organization is growing, people are moving.
It's a constant movement from tactical to strategic.
Tactical, it means the implementation, the execution of ideas and
projects.
Strategic is the higher level, the big picture of things that are
aligned with fiscal responsibilities, visions of the whole company and
where they want to be.
But that's strategic.
And so you yourself, if you want to take on more strategic level
roles, which is what a director level role is, it would be wise for
you yourself to be moving from tactical to strategic.
So with that in mind, the four key considerations, the essence of the
mall comes down to how can we be in a position to move, make that
movement along
with our higher ups, along with the whole company?
The whole company is also making that transition from tactical to
strategic, and that is the way that they grow.
That is the way they sustain their success in the marketplace.
And more importantly, that is how they can ensure that all the right
people, all the best people, all the experienced people are from the
top down in the right seats, to make the strategy, to create the vision and to paint
that picture and communicate, communicate that vision all the way
down.
That's the only way to ensure that is when people are moving tactical
to strategic.
And unfortunately, because you're in this position and these
opportunities are opening up to you and the higher ups are encouraging
you to step up, then there's not a whole lot of support for I need to be able to carve that
path.
So then the onus and responsibility lies on you to make sure that
you're in that transition to from tactical to strategic, so that you
can open up opportunities, time and energy, intellectual and
bandwidth, so that you can open that up to take on those
opportunities.
So here are the four key considerations.
There's four key considerations for making that movement within the
same company.
Consideration number one, having the right people in the right seats.
Now you've been a manager for quite some time.
Chances are you've had a team.
You've led teams and projects as well.
Some of them might be cross-functional, and every individual on your
team was involved in tactical implementation, activities to implement projects and goals and visions and so on.
So when you're up for taking a step further higher in strategic, it
would be wise for you to build a team around those roles that you used
to be implementing and being able to offload those.
They were one strategic for you to do, but because now you're stepping
up into director level roles in the same company, those activities that you
used to do that you now do really well, that you're now an expert in,
those now need to be handed off to the right people, and it's around
building the right team of people in the right seats and coaching them
to do what you used to do well.
So that is the key consideration number one.
Key consideration number two, having clearly documented processes around each role so
that you can set up your team members for success.
Now why is that important, documentation of processes?
The reason why is because what you are delegating to these team
members, the right team members are the areas in which you are
successful in implementing.
They were activities that you are highly familiar with that people have relied on you for,
and you've developed your own expertise around them.
But it's time to let go of these activities because you desire to move
up to a director level positions, and you can't be spending time in
tactical implementation.
But this is your expertise.
This was your implementation.
This was your process as well.
And if you are delegating that successfully, it would be wise for the
person that you're, the people that you're delegating to, to
understand how to be successful in that as well.
And eventually they too will become implementation expertise.
They to become successful at executing the vision and the goals of
each project as well.
So when things are clearly documented, this helps you to be able to delegate
that success, but it also helps your team members to take on that
responsibility with clarity on what they are to do, what the
expectations are, and also their metrics for success.
So this is key consideration number two.
If this situation that I'm describing resonates with you, for example, you've been with your company as a manager for quite
some time and some of your higher ups really are approaching you,
encouraging you to step up, and you're seeing growth in the company
and there are opportunities to become a director.
And you know that you can succeed there, but you want to make sure
that you can contribute value to the company.
If this is you and it resonates with you, then I invite you to work
with me.
Every single week I train managers, experienced, established managers and
directors and above on how to be effective, leading their teams, how
to be effective building visions, how to be effective at understanding
people and human behaviors so that you can build meaningful
relationships based on trust and intrinsic motivation.
And so if that's you and you're serious about this, achieving this career growth for yourself, then below this
video and the first link is a link to book a call and speak to one of
my trusted career advisors.
And this is just to explore whether or not it is the right fit, your
situation and working with me.
And if it is, then I look forward to personally mentoring you on the
other side.
Key consideration number three, is understanding and appreciating your
team members so that they can be intrinsically motivated.
Let's face it, when you're stepping up into director level position,
you're going to be managing other managers and they might have their
own teams.
So you have you are now overseeing projects.
You're now overseeing some activities that speak that help the whole company move forward to this
big picture and visionary goals.
And as a result of that, you're going to be a little bit more out of
touch with the day in and day out.
Execution on certain projects and certain activities are going to be a
little bit out of touch.
But as a result of that, the onus will lie on you to ensure that the
projects and every the goals are moving forward as intended.
When you build a team of people that are intrinsically motivated, what
that means is that you don't have to micromanage them.
They're intrinsically motivated.
That means that they are naturally inspired to do what they do well.
They're naturally inspired to carry on and uphold their
responsibilities.
They're naturally inspired to to carry out their accountability and to hold themselves accountable.
And you don't need to be in there.
Having transactions, saying, did you get it done?
Why not?
That that micromanagement, you don't need to do that anymore.
And this is important because when it comes to being a director,
you're overseeing, you have fiscal responsibilities in your job
description and your role.
You have fiscal responsibilities, and you don't have the time and the
bandwidth to micromanage each of your team members, especially those
ones that manage their own teams.
So when you can understand and appreciate each team member, they can
become intrinsically motivated.
Because the essence of human behavior is all of your team members.
They want to you want them to be inspired.
And when they're inspired, they can see how participating in each of
their activities is fulfilling for them.
They can see how it is a fair exchange for them.
They can see how it does lend themselves to be appreciated and
understood in ways that are valuable to them, that are important to
them.
So as a new leader, as a new higher up level leader, I should say, it is the third consideration to understand and appreciate each and every
one of your direct reports.
Key consideration number four, is setting up the right internal
processes so that this movement is continuous.
The movement I'm referring to is the movement from tactical to
strategic.
And this is so important for growing companies.
If the company is growing, chances are the C-suite, the VP's at the top,
they are delegating their tactical tasks, they're delegating, and
they're moving into higher level strategic because the company is
demanding that of them.
When a company grows, they are moving from where they are today to
where they want to be, and they could have annual objectives, they could have five year objectives, ten year objectives, and so on.
And it really takes that movement of senior leaders from tactical to
strategic.
Because once the company grows, the company is no longer what it, the
the no longer what it used to be.
It's grown.
It's moved into a new place in the marketplace.
It's moving into a new competitive advantage.
It has sustained its success.
It's thriving in a in a new place.
And once a company grows to a new place, what used to be a strategic
activity has now become quite tactical.
So there's new strategies, there's bigger responsibilities constantly.
So if you are wanting to be successful in this movement yourself and your own career growth, it will be wise, key
consideration number four is to ensure that you have the right
internal processes in place, so that the movement from tactical to
strategic is consistent and continuous for you.
Now, I just finished sharing with you the considerations of moving
from manager to director in the same company. There are some principles when it comes to moving from manager to
director in general, and I'm going to share with you those principles
right up next in this next video.
I'll see you there.