{"id":15367,"date":"2018-12-27T15:38:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T15:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/directiveconsulting.com\/uk\/?p=15367"},"modified":"2026-02-26T14:09:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T19:09:23","slug":"thursdaythoughts-advice-for-first-time-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/directiveconsulting.com\/uk\/blog\/thursdaythoughts-advice-for-first-time-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice for First Time Business Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ast-oembed-container \" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe title=\"Leadership and Management- Making Difficult Decisions as a Marketing Leader\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6OiOvA5HhuM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A hard question to answer for a lot of people is, \u201cWhat do I need to do to go from being an employee to being an impactful business leader?&#8221; Even more so than that, what needs to change in that time? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What do new leaders, essentially, people who have gone from being traditional employees to now being directors or an executive of some sort where they&#8217;re managing a team?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What do you need to do? What needs to change for you to be an effective leader, and what leadership qualities do you need to develop?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leadership Qualities &#8211; Perception is Reality<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To start, I want to tell you a little story about the very first internship I ever had. This internship was for the Azusa Chamber of Commerce and I was excited to figure out what \u201cintern life\u201d was like. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I remember showing up in jeans, a collared shirt I had from high school, and ratty shoes. I looked over to my new boss and he was rocking a full suit. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I realized I wasn&#8217;t necessarily dressed for the occasion. As simple as this sounds, when you&#8217;re transitioning from being an individual contributor, or an employee, to now becoming a manager or director in the C-Suite, how you look matters. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perception is the reality, my friends. How you talk, how you walk, how you handle yourself, and how you dress can be an essential aspect of reaching leadership success. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, a lot of people might say, that&#8217;s all external stuff. And it is. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I&#8217;m not saying that that makes you good or bad. I&#8217;m saying it affects how you are perceived, which then becomes the reality of the people that you&#8217;re reporting to. My tip here for new employees who are moving to a management role is present yourself at the same level as your leaders. If your boss is casual, then you can be casual too. If your boss is wearing a jacket with jeans, then wear something similar. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s simple really. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Business Boundaries Matter <\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Next, boundaries are key to the development of good business leaders. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This can be difficult for people who go from peer relationships, where you&#8217;re working with certain individuals as friends, to a manager relationship, where you now have to direct the same people. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Think of it this way, they&#8217;re not really your peers anymore!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is where boundaries are crucial. You might need to separate from the jokes you used to make, the activities you used to participate in, and other former habits in order for you to grow. Learn more about how to deal with this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/kathycaprino\/2018\/02\/18\/can-bosses-and-employees-be-friends-outside-of-work\/#494ba1b74140\">here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, this is a personal management style of mine. Other business leaders may be able to be best friends with people and lead them. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My business partner is actually my best friend. A lot of the first employees here are some of my best friends. So I&#8217;m not saying you can&#8217;t be friends with people! However, there needs to be clear boundaries so when you are at work, you&#8217;re honoring them with respect and helping them grow in their roles as well. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is important to note because your friends don&#8217;t always perform at the level that, frankly, you need them to for your job as a manager. If you can&#8217;t have difficult conversations it&#8217;s going to create problems for you. Be able to draw the line between work and your social life. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s easy. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Good Business Leaders Don\u2019t Lose Individual Contributor Status<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I highly encourage you, if you&#8217;re managing a smaller team for the first time, to not lose your individual contributor status. Even if you don&#8217;t have 100% of your time to do your previous work anymore, don&#8217;t go from 100% effort to 0%. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The size of the team usually isn\u2019t large enough to recognize the increased salary costs you&#8217;ve demanded with your new title. In other words, you&#8217;re actually not creating the value that on paper you believe you are just because you&#8217;re managing a small team. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Keep putting in the time and show your team you care; <a href=\"https:\/\/directiveconsulting.com\/uk\/blog\/2018\/12\/12\/key-to-employee-ownership\/\">empower your people<\/a>! This not only translates positively upwards but helps you maintain and earn the respect of your subordinates. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If You Don\u2019t Report On It,\u00a0 Did It Happen? <\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Make sure you&#8217;re reporting weekly to whoever is writing your checks. You should have a weekly report that clearly and proactively synthesizes what you worked on, why you focused on those things, and what you&#8217;re going to be doing next. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When showing your efforts, you should show the difficulties you faced and the solutions you incorporated. You&#8217;re explaining to the person above you that you\u2019re thinking about solving problems and taking your work to the next level in your management role. Then show them what you\u2019re proactively going to tackle next. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you do this every week, you will be amazed at the new freedom you get with budgets, with new initiatives, with time, and the vertical movement you&#8217;re going to create for your own career.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leadership Qualities Take Time<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lastly, leadership is not so much about the title as it is the perspective. If you&#8217;re doing everything behind the scenes and nobody understands what you&#8217;re doing with your time, they cannot fully appreciate the value that you&#8217;re working hard to create.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Take a deep breath. It&#8217;s going to be okay. You&#8217;re new, you&#8217;re learning, but don&#8217;t lose your individual contributor status. Dress as nice as your boss dresses. Report to your boss every week with what you did, why you did it, and what you&#8217;re doing next. Don&#8217;t lose your individual contributor status.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Did you hear that? Don\u2019t lose your individual contributor status. \ud83d\ude09 Now get out there and make a difference. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>_<\/p>\n<p>Music: http:\/\/www.hooksounds.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A hard question to answer for a lot of people is, \u201cWhat do I need to do to go from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,64],"tags":[74,119,127,177,180],"class_list":["post-15367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-perspectives","category-videos","tag-b2b","tag-leadership","tag-marketing","tag-training","tag-video"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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