No matter your level at work, you can influence and create change. However, it can be challenging to know just the steps to take and the things to focus on to improve a particular situation at your leadership level.
Read on to understand the responsibility and delivery expectations at different organizational leadership levels through the lenses of Strategy, Authority, Influence, and Execution.
INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTOR
- Responsible for work activities and project delivery
- Can evolve skills and competencies to be highly valued experts to meet the company’s objectives
- Collaborate with management, cross-functional teams, partners, and customers to execute and grow skills
Strategic (Mission to Vision to Strategy)
- Through the individual’s pursuit of mastery in areas of work, you can choose to learn beyond the requirements of today’s role or job task list. By looking across the organization or into other organizations, you can see how your work directly impacts the team, department, and org. Thinking about innovating yourself or the work itself is strategic to your career. This gives you a strategic perspective that allows you to direct your development and value in the market.
Influence (Knowledge to Confidence to Communication to Networks)
- Effectively communicate how you work and influence others in execution across the team, org, or market.
- Provide a positive cultural example in the way you work and are available to support others in their work.
- Take responsibility for illustrating and building best practices to share with others across the organization and leadership.
- Maximize your influence without authority, no matter your level or room.
- Often, this comes from having a servant leadership approach vs. a “sales” approach.
Execution (Works to Excellence to Expertise)
- Everyone starts here.
- Execution begins with three building blocks of work – 1) Performing work, 2) Being available to deliver the work, and 3) Working well with others.
- No matter where you start, this is the requirement for you to get paid for your service.
- Growth starts by continually improving in these three areas.
MANAGER TO LEADER OF TEAMS
- Delivering a more senior leader’s plan through others
- Own the development of others in the execution of roles & responsibility
- Ensure compliance with organizational standards
- Leading others as a team, department, or cross-functional group to desired results and non-financial outcomes of the org
Strategic (Mission to Vision to Strategy)
- Establishing a team or sub-org vision for success & strategies within a larger vision & strategic plan of the org
- Bringing the larger multi-year vision and strategy into the sub-org is critical to maximizing the outcomes of each individual.
- Creating alignment for crucial measures that immediately tie into the larger organization’s financial and non-financial objectives requires a more senior leader’s approval.
Authority (Strategy to Structure to Roles to People)
- Managing and leading others in a structure with direct reports
- Responsible and accountable for the performance of others to meet time-bound execution against metrics (annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily)
- Influence: Effectively communicate how you work and influence others in execution across the team, org, or market.
- Provide a positive cultural example in the way you work and are available to support others in their work.
- Take responsibility for illustrating and building best practices to share with others across the organization and leadership.
- Maximize your influence without authority, no matter your level or room.
- Often, this comes from having a servant leadership approach vs. a “sales” approach.
Execution (Works to Excellence to Expertise)
- Moving from being competent to excellent to being a subject matter expert that groups or organizations can’t do without moves you to a level of mastery that requires thousands of reps, application of competency across multiple projects types, and an insatiable appetite for replacements & innovation
ORGANIZATION EXECUTIVE LEADER
- Setting the vision and resulting organizational strategy to meet required outcomes for business sustainability and growth, leading leaders to multi-year results
Strategic (Mission to Vision to Strategy)
- To truly set an organizational vision and strategy, you must have a mission to accomplish. Whether the mission already exists or has yet to be developed, the ability to see the required multi-year future state requires complete market insights and analytics of potential environmental concerns that impact the current state of the business. A leader’s ability to seek out appropriate market insights, experts, and environmental trends to inform an entire enterprise approach to cast a vision over many years with underlying strategies and structures to meet goals
Authority (Strategy to Structure to Roles to People)
- Leading leaders with their own teams requires significant resource planning skills and the ability to challenge leaders based on the markets and the necessary financial disciplines in P&L, Balance Sheet, Talent, Competition, Growth, and Operations related to the whole enterprise.
Influence (Knowledge to Confidence to Communication to Networks)
- To properly create organizational influence, a leader must have authenticity and credibility.
- Authenticity through a high level of confidence in who they are, knowing their effect when dealing with unique individuals, groups, or forums, and the ability to maintain the integrity
- Credibility through understanding born out of knowledge, experience, curiosity
- Ability to communicate clearly; and connect people to ideas easily across multiple mediums
- This allows the leader to influence directly and cascade powerful ideas through others.
Execution (Works to Excellence to Expertise)
- Moving from being competent to excellent to being a subject matter expert that groups or organizations can’t do without moves you to a level of mastery that requires thousands of reps, application of competency across multiple projects types, and an insatiable appetite for replacements & innovation
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADER
- The impact reaches into industry and markets; highly strategic in approach setting strategic plans with 5+ years vision for industry and company; a “Go To” voice in the space; highly influential beyond career time.
Strategic (Mission to Vision to Strategy)
- In many ways, it has a futurist mindset in the ability to see what is possible while grounding in the analytical capabilities that create scenarios for high-caliber decision-making that informs how the vision of an industry will impact the company’s role in the industry.
Authority (Strategy to Structure to Roles to People)
- Your span and scope of governance go beyond the walls of the organization.
- The leader of leaders also has leadership in boards, regulatory bodies, investment groups, or other transversal or complementary groups that provide a forum for industry or market impact.
- Seeing how competitive and coop-petition across affected organizations are impacted in financials, operations, and value chains
Influence (Knowledge to Confidence to Communication to Networks)
- You now must to speak to investors, industry forums, news outlets, and market-based stakeholders who require your expertise and vision
- Ideas are your currency of value that outweighs titles or successful events in your experience.
- High credibility bolstered by the authenticity that informs other’s decisions for innovation, growth, or sustainability
Execution (Works to Excellence to Expertise)
- If you are transformational in execution, you are Genius level! Think Beethoven. He was entirely transformational to all music over generations. Yet, he was not transformational in communicating visions and getting others to even like him, much less develop people or the industry to meet a new market need.
Regardless of your position in an organization, you can influence and drive change. The article describes the responsibilities and expectations of leaders at different levels based on Strategy, Authority, Influence, and Execution. The individual contributor level focuses on developing expertise and collaborating with others to achieve organizational objectives. This work includes taking a strategic approach, building influence without formal authority, and continually improving execution skills. Moving up to a managerial or leadership role involves managing teams and delivering on organizational objectives while setting vision and strategies for success. At the highest level of organizational leadership, executives must thoroughly understand the market and industry trends to develop a long-term vision and strategy while leading other leaders to achieve results. Ultimately, a transformational leader significantly impacts the industry and beyond, setting the strategic direction for the company and becoming a respected voice in the space.