While leadership can be developed, it is not always easy to so. There is never a guarantee that your well crafted programs will work, but there are a few proven actions that you can take to stack the odds in your favour. One such action that is often ignored by HR and L&D professionals, involves systematically seizing the opportunities presented by people’s career transitions.
Put simply, there are certain times in people’s lives where they are challenged to take stock of who they are, to reinvent who they want to be and to question their beliefs about the realities around them. One easily identifiable window of opportunity presents itself when people move into new leadership roles – from being a staff member to becoming a manager, from being a functional manager to becoming general manager or from a from being manager in one location to being a manager in a different location – for at these times people are psychologically ready to learn and they are open to changing their approaches to leadership. Yet, few organisations seize this opportunity by implementing company-wide transition programs. ‘Transition programs’ are markedly different from ‘induction’ because they focus on the changing individual rather than on the specific requirements of the new role. A typical transition program involves learners in identifying what they:
- Need to let go of from their previous ways of working
- Want to and realistically can hold onto from their previous ways of working
- Have to start doing that they didn’t do in their previous ways of working
Transition programs offer a structured, generic and open-ended way for people moving into new roles to discover the leader they now need to be.
“Nothing is so well learned as that which is discovered.”
Socrates
These programs are process rather than content driven, they are supported by newly formed developmental relationships, and they provide a psychologically safe space for learners to explore new views on leadership.
