Very recently, a Professionelle member sent us the following
question:
I work for a management consulting company and am currently
in a business analyst (BA) role. Soon I will start a new role as
Lead BA, still with the same company, but with a different client.
I will be expected to make decisions about the BA workstream and to
manage two other BAs.
I have never been in a leadership role before and wonder if
you have any tips on taking it on successfully. I'm a bit daunted
by being the only female on the project and also about being the
youngest person (I'm 25). A final concern is that I have less
experience in the new client's industry than the two other analysts
who I'll be "leading".
Professionelle answers:
We decided that Sarah, given her extensive experience as a
management consultant, was best positioned to answer this
one! So read on to see Sarah's unique take on this.
You're not alone
Concerns about this first taste of business leadership are not
unusual and they have come up in various guises on Professionelle
before. It's great that you are asking for input and ideas
rather than simply barreling in and hoping for the best.
I grabbed the chance to answer it because I have twenty years'
experience in consulting and have wrestled with this sort of issue
myself. I've split my response into three parts, each
reflecting a different lens for you to consider:
- Focus on yourself
- Focus on your team
- Focus on the future
Focus on yourself
Confidence
Let me start by pointing out the obvious: you were
promoted! That's something to celebrate and be proud
of. And you were promoted despite being female,
younger than the others and not well versed in the client's
business...
Your promotion means your firm's management sees both current
technical competence and future potential in you. Do you know
what they consider your key attributes to be? Go back to your
recent assessments, whether written or verbal, and remind yourself
about the various skills and abilities your managers have said they
see in you. Savour their words, and let them give you
confidence.
Assessments being what they are, you probably have areas for
development - but, you know, there will always be things to work
at. And if you look at the most senior people in your firm you can
probably quickly reassure yourself that it is possible to rise to
the top without being perfect in every detail!
By the way, the smartest managers know how to compensate for
areas that aren't their forte. Visionaries surround themselves with
people who are good at filling in the blanks and dotting the i's.
Unconfident speakers get coaches and speechwriters. You say you
don't know as much about this client's business as your two
analysts. You don't NEED to. They can supply industry-specific
expertise while you're still learning the ropes - remember, you
have other skills to contribute! My advice would be: don't pretend
you know more than you do and do ask for their help. A little
honesty, humility, and gratitude are almost always appreciated.
Strengths
What your managers see as your key strengths is one thing.
Another is what you think you're good at, and,
importantly, what you enjoy. Those two are often, but not always,
linked. (For example, I can spot a typo at a hundred paces but I'd
hate to spend all my time in a nitpicking editor role - though
Galia may sometimes think I revel in it…).
You will have been born with certain innate talents and you will
also have developed strengths over time. Strengths go beyond
specific cognitive skills and knowledge. They stretch towards
strengths of character, and virtuous behaviour. You probably
feel good when you're using them, and you may be at your most
creative or effective then, too.
Whatever your sweet spots are, if you are aware of them, you can
increase the chance of being staffed on work that suits you best -
at which point you will find it easier to perform highly, to enjoy
the work more, and to feel confident. This positive cycle builds up
your 'psychological reservoir' so that when things go wrong you
have internal resources to draw on as you struggle to overcome the
problems.
Finding ways to use your strengths more often and in more ways
can also build those wellbeing feelings and make it easier to
tackle difficult situations. For example, I vividly remember a
workshop at which one participant with a top strength of 'humour
and playfulness' said she struggled every month taking the minutes
for tedious board meetings. We brainstormed that she could
give the board members appropriate Disney character names in her
(private!) notes and use that to liven things up for herself.
If you have trouble distilling your strengths, you might find it
helpful to take a free online diagnostic test called the VIA
Survey of Character Strengths (you need to register to take the
240 question test). Over 1 million people worldwide have
taken this test, developed by practitioners in the field of
Positive Psychology. It helps you identify strengths in your
character from among 24 possible strengths that were identified by
looking through every major world culture and belief system to find
characteristics held to be admirable.
Values
Being aware of your values is another very useful dimension to
help you think through situations and responses before you take
action. Also, your team of analysts is going to want to know
what's important to you, in order to try to fit in with your
priorities and concerns. Note: I'd rather work for someone who is
authentically herself, even if I don't share her values, than for
someone who tries to please everyone and ends up changing
priorities every two minutes!
To identify your values isn't too hard. Think about how you
yourself like to be treated. What behaviours do you admire or
despise? When have you thought, "I hope I can be like that when the
time comes", or "I will NEVER treat people like that"? The chances
are that something on these occasions spoke to your value
system. If you've taken the VIA Strengths test (see the quote
box above) you may find that some of the more "virtuous" strengths
such as honesty and bravery line up with your values.
Focus on Your Team
Communicate, communicate
It is really hard to have too much communication. While I have
personally struggled as a manager to remember to schedule in enough
regular review and catch-up sessions they are really
important. If you do have too many, it's easy to agree to
trim them a little. At worst you'll all have wasted an hour or two.
It's much harder to put right the waste of heading down a blind
alley caused by not keeping a close enough eye on progress. I don't
know how much control you have over this part of the logistics but
you can always find opportunities to catch up informally - maybe
suggest a three way lunch, or a chat over coffee. The break away
from your desks will almost certainly give you all a little
much-needed perspective.
Part of the early communication that can be useful is to share
with the team how you each like to work: this will be easy now that
you have done the reflections on your strengths and values! Early
on is also a good time to find out about key personal dates and
prior commitments. While you may not have the power to grant the
necessary time off you can support your team by making sure the
senior managers don't lose sight of the dates.
You'll need to think about communicating "up" as well. What are
the partners and senior managers going to want to know? Progress
against milestones? Keeping in budget? Potential road blocks? The
team's latest ideas on solving the issues in your project? Whatever
those hot buttons are, get in the habit of tracking and distilling
them so you can give a pithy rundown whenever necessary. It will
give you valuable insight into how things are going, too.
This Leading Thing
Screeds and screeds have been written on leadership. What it is,
examples of successful leaders, how to be a leader, paradigms,
principles and practices of leadership, different leadership
styles. You name it. I very much doubt there's a simple answer out
there but I do think authenticity is a big part of leadership.
Authentic leaders are in tune with their values. Occasionally that
might mean they are neither effective nor pleasant - I can think of
command-and-control leaders who were true to their values of status
and success and had everyone running scared - but usually it makes
for better leaders. It's hard to be someone you're not for
long!
You say you have no leadership experience but what about events
at school or sports, perhaps? The essence of leading is the same
for a netball team as a group of analysts on a consulting
engagement. If you have experiences to reflect on, what did you
learn from them? If you really have no past leadership experience
then this is a time to experiment with different approaches and
styles and see what feels natural and authentic. You can lead
by setting an example, you can lead by encouraging discussion and
consensus forming, you can lead by command-and-control and so
on. One thing I have repeatedly had to remind myself when
leading consulting assignments is that I don't have to come up with
the whole answer; instead, we the team have to. So my job is more
to coax out the best ideas than to produce the solution. And I have
seen the best ideas come from the youngest, greenest team
members…
A last thought here. One element of leadership that you often
see in the literature is that effective leaders give their
followers a sense of power and enablement. My advice here is
to specify to your team the inputs or the outputs of the task, but
not both. Put another way, you can give people tools and
systems, or you can give them objectives and goals. Leaders who
micromanage (a surprisingly common affliction) do both and end up
severely limiting room for people to take ownership. Yes, you can
specify outputs and also provide support and advice on the inputs,
but don't specify and insist on the latter.
Focus on the Future
Mentors
At this watershed in your working life, the single best thing
you can do for yourself and your future career is to seek out a
mentor. We have written at length here at Professionelle about the
career benefits of mentors; for example, they can provide any and
all of: perspective; wisdom; coaching; new contacts; and new work
opportunities.
Your mentor could be male or female, inside your company or
outside. The research shows that mentors you choose yourself -
based on shared values, interests and respect - are the most
effective. Early on in your career an internal mentor can
help guide you through the politics of your organisation and can
support you by sponsoring you for interesting projects and by
protecting you from unreasonably arduous assignments.
The Token Woman
Right now you're concerned about being younger, less experienced
in your new client's industry and being the only female. Some of
those things will change, but your gender won't. I reckon you
had better get used to being a lone woman: if you are in a tiny
minority now, at the start of your career, it's unlikely to get
better as you rise through the ranks. If it really bothers you, you
need to change company or, more likely, change industry. However,
like anything, being the odd one out has benefits as well as
downsides. The visibility of being the token female will give you a
stage and a profile. Be ready to take advantage of it. Do great
work, and make sure people know about it!