Leadership is contextual

Every leadership role has a different context.

As leaders progress, they generally move further away from doing the work themselves and become increasingly responsible for achieving outcomes through other people. They need to think further ahead. They need to develop capability rather than simply provide answers. They need to create an environment where people take responsibility, make decisions and solve problems without constantly escalating them.

That requires more than adding a few new leadership skills. It requires the leader to change how they see their role - and ultimately how they see themselves as a leader.

“The leadership that made someone successful in one role may be exactly what holds them back in the next."

The trap starts surprisingly early

For many people, their first leadership role creates a problem they carry with them for years.

They are usually promoted because they are good at the work. They know the answers. They solve problems. They understand the technical detail. Then we put them in charge of other people and continue rewarding those same qualities.

So they develop an identity around being the person who knows, fixes, checks and controls. It can work extremely well in an early leadership role. The problem comes when they get promoted again.

Their responsibilities change. Their identity often doesn’t.

Now the organisation has a manager or senior leader who is still solving problems that should be solved two levels below them. They dip down. They become a bottleneck. Their people become dependent on them. And the leader becomes increasingly busy and frustrated.

Promotion should trigger a leadership transition

A promotion shouldn’t simply mean learning the responsibilities of the new job. It should trigger a much more important question:

Who do I need to become to be successful in this role?

That question should be asked throughout a leadership career. Because leadership development isn’t something you complete. As your context changes, your leadership needs to change with it.

The most successful leaders aren’t necessarily the ones who have accumulated the most leadership knowledge. They are the ones who can recognise when the leadership that got them here won’t get them where they need to go next.

That is a very different way of thinking about leadership development. And it is the thinking behind the Leader’s Identity Guide.