Page 67 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

52 Just Promoted!

associated with an activity or had been only the coordinator. Asked to coor-
dinate and facilitate communications between four different corporate sub-
committees but given a decision-making or leadership role on none of them,
he nonetheless talked about the subcommittees as if he were directing all four
of them and all four were reporting to him, much to the chagrin of the com-
mittee chairs. He name dropped shamelessly and had a way of dramatizing
conversations with big names as if they were asking him for advice:
“Yesterday, Gabe called me to his office, and he said to me, ‘Jim, things
aren’t going very well over there, are they?’ ‘No,’ I agreed, ‘they’re not.’ ‘Well,
Jim,’ Gabe said, ‘what would you do to fix it?’”
Notice that the dramatizations are inevitably on an insider, first-name
basis. Eventually, this leader’s people and coworkers shared less and less infor-
mation with him and increasingly distrusted him because they felt he would
either intrude where he was not wanted or would take credit for what was
not his. An organizational advocate supports when support is needed, stays
out of where he or she is not needed, and lets those who earned the success
get the credit.
Finally, an organization advocate supports the organization’s goals and
mission in a way that people become committed to the organization’s success.
A street sweeper at Disneyworld was asked about the tedium of the job. He
replied that he was an entertainer, not a street sweeper. An advocate promotes
the mission, the people, and the vision of his or her organization.

EMPOWER YOUR ORGANIZATION: RAISING
EXPECTATIONS AND HOPES

There is no lever more forceful in your transition process than the notion that
all members of an organization are personally empowered within their scope
of responsibility. To feel empowered is to feel a sense of control, a sense that
you have the power to affect the work and the organization. Rather than feel-
ing helpless and on the dependent end of a parent-child relationship, empow-
erment gives employees a sense that they can exert control. By personal
empowerment, leaders engender these feelings:

■ People are part of the management, and they can improve the
organization.
■ Good ideas will be implemented.