Good afternoon.
I have a question on leadership skills needed to move from a small company to a larger company. Kind of the big fish in a little pond to a small fish in a big pond analogy. Or like going from playing college football (in the U.S.) to pro football. The technical skills are similar, but the execution needs to be different.
Trying to give as many examples as possible - I need to learn to get results without doing the actual work........
Are there any podcasts (I searched around for a bit but could not find what I was looking for) that would help me?
thank you,
mcoverdale
Communicate
The number one thing I've had to learn as I lead a larger team in a larger organisation is to communicate everything, all the time. Formulating a vision is one thing -- I can do that easily enough -- but it's of no value if everyone else doesn't get it. My team members need to know all about it, my boss needs to have full visibility into it and the value it'll bring to the business, and other departments need to know what's going on so they can understand the impact it'll have on them. Basically, as more people are involved (whether in your team or elsewhere in the organization) you need to spend more time communicating -- building relationships, feeding information out, taking information in, processing it and sending it back out again.
Relationships, Delegation and Effective Meetings
There are a lot of podcasts that would help, but I would focus on building relationships and delegation.
You will spend a lot more time working with other middle managers keeping the wheels turning. This will rarely be a situation where you can strong arm someone into your point of view or to do your bidding. It is almost always done on the foundation of mutual respect and helping each other out, knowing that you both have your own success criteria and goals. Learn how to foster good relationships with your peers and the rest comes pretty easy. Use the relationship keyword to find some podcast to listen to on this topic.
Delegation will play an increasingly important role. You will have less time to spend doing the work yourself. There are several casts on the topic but my favorite is http://www.manager-tools.com/2007/01/the-juggling-koan.
Step up your game on meeting effectiveness. You will be hosting/facilitating meetings with your peers, higher execs, your staff etc. There are some great podcasts here on meetings (again, use the topic filter). My favorite is http://www.manager-tools.com/2007/11/how-to-prewire-a-meeting.
Hope that helps,
Mike