Page 150 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

Beginning to Craft Your Vision and Direction 135

anyone’s mind about what Bruce felt was important and what issues would be
emphasized before others. He spent a lot of time with people, individually and
in groups, not only asking questions but also stressing his main themes. The
decisions he made about employees, including the way he organized people
in projects and how he assigned work, all conveyed his early priorities. In par-
ticular, Bruce effectively utilized an approach that we call managing vocabu-
lary. He used several key words and consciously repeated them to emphasize
the major points in his leadership platform. Words such as initiative, team-
work, systems, integrity, ours, and we became the symbolic lexicon of the divi-
sion. This repetition of key themes was a valuable tool in Bruce’s efforts to
build alignment in the organization. During this early period, people began
to adopt Bruce’s thinking and direction. The early period is a time for mold-
ing and setting important precedents and for visionary leadership. It is a time
when your key values must become part of the organization’s vocabulary.
When developing your vision, think about these issues:

Leveraging Strengths and Opportunities
■ What are your department’s or team’s key strengths, and how can you
leverage them?
■ What is the greatest contribution your function can make to the
organization?
■ What are the opportunities your department can leverage?
■ What are your department’s key success factors?
■ What do your customers (internal and/or external) value most about
what your department does?

Managing Weaknesses and Threats
■ What are your department’s weaknesses? How can they be overcome?
■ What are the threats to your department’s effectiveness?
■ What, if anything, do your customers find difficult or don’t like about
how your department functions?

Looking Ahead
■ What are the key services or products that require the most focus?
■ Who are your clients now?
■ Whom do you want to be your clients in the future?
■ How is your department measured for performance?
■ What is the culture you want for your department?