Page 30 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

You’ve Been Promoted, Now What? 15

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culture eats strategy and best intentions for lunch. Shaping and reinforcing
desired culture is an area where all newly promoted leaders can and should
have a positive impact with their teams and organizations.

9. Decide what needs changing. Then execute, execute, execute! Very few
leaders move into new roles without having to lead small- to large-scale
change. Expect that you will as well. Your diagnostic and problem-solving
skills will be essential to your success. Part of the formula of success in mov-
ing up is determined by the quality of your problem-solving skills, the ques-
tions you ask, and the usefulness of the data or information you collect. You
can be confounded by the questions you did not ask, the information you did
not have, and the answers you did not pursue.
Successfully moving up is directly related to the body of information you
have in order to use this information to identify, prevent, and solve problems.
You will also need to determine how to sharpen day-to-day operations and
institute methods of continuous improvement, where appropriate. You must
be able to skillfully lead the “diagnose-decide-plan-engage-implement change
cycle” in a highly effective manner. Many ideas and approaches are presented
in Chapters 7 and 8 that can equip you for this difficult challenge.

10. Create and implement a robust leadership development and talent man-
agement plan. Your current leadership and talent capability will, to a very large
extent, determine the short-term success of your business, function, or team.
In turn, your organization’s leadership and talent pipeline will have a tremen-
dous impact on the future success of your organization. To be a top company
or organization of any kind, leaders need to model their dedication to build-
ing strong and versatile leadership and talent pipelines. You will need to model
the unrelenting focus on talent that you expect of others. When you lead in
this way, effective leadership and talent development become a natural way of
doing business. It will become a positive mindset and a way of life in your
organization. You will want to make certain to seamlessly integrate your orga-
nization’s or team’s leadership and talent development plan as part of your
broader business growth strategy and goals. Chapters 4 to 8 all contain ideas
and tools that can help you with these important efforts.

11. Leverage your top strengths, but do not overuse them. Overused strengths
can be some of the most powerful and insidious career derailing factors at any