Page 179 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

164 Just Promoted!

tives and longer-term goals. In today’s team-based organizations, be certain
that your function’s planning and objectives flow smoothly and are aligned
with horizontal team and processes such as supply and value chains.
Review corporate and departmental policies. Make sure departmental and
work unit policies are in line with corporate policy. Policies provide addi-
tional guidance about how work should and should not be done. If policies
are too restrictive, productivity can suffer. If they are too loose, legal, regula-
tory, and ethical breaches can occur. One need only look at the private, state,
and federal bank lending and mortgage policies leading up to the 2008 finan-
cial crises and the subsequent deep recession as a clear example.
Many policies evolve over time and become habits. All policies should be
reviewed periodically. Some need to be revised. Some simply add bureaucracy
and may have no useful purpose. Other policies may reflect legal requirements.
The diagnosis that is carried out by the steering committee should first review
critical policies and retain the ones with the most impact on productivity and
morale. Others should be eliminated whenever possible.

TARGET 2. LEADERSHIP, DELEGATION,

AND ACCOUNTABILITY
A diagnosis should review departmental leadership. We have stressed the
leader’s importance as a diagnostician, problem solver, and leader of people,
resources, and processes. Because of its sensitivity, this is one area that may
not be the responsibility of the steering committee or task forces. It is an area
that you may have to assess alone or with consultant help and with the assis-
tance of your human resources partner as part of the diagnostic process. In
other situations, you may be selecting a team from scratch such as in a start-
up or a brand-new function.
Analyzing leadership includes issues such as the group’s expectations of
its leaders, the quality of the leadership, leadership’s expectations of employ-
ees and the organization as a whole, the informal or earned power of your
leadership team, and the efficiency of the reporting structure. How does the
team expect leadership to behave? In the smokestack culture of 25 to 50 years
ago, for example, workers expected management to be directive, arbitrary, and
demanding, which led to divisive union-management relationships. In today’s
organizations, competencies such as vision, business acumen, fostering