Gautam's First Two baby Steps

Micro manager to Macro manager

Gautam’s biggest challenge was quickly moving from managing a function to leading a bunch of functions constituting an SBU. In the beginning, this transition undermined his confidence to take decisions. As a result he got into the over-managing and micromanaging what he had   been well versed with and almost neglecting the rest of the functions. But he became aware of it before it was too late,when his HR  head gave him very valuable but matter of fact feedback about how stifled his GM marketing was feeling, gasping desperately for some space.The tendency of managers like Gautam to remain stuck in their functional comfort zones is a  natural reaction to the inconvenience of moving up to a macro  role. It is not fair to expect newly elevated business leaders to be experts in all business areas, But it is good if they are able to move quickly into the roles of macro mangers and turn themselves from specialists into  generalists who are reasonably well versed with all the functions to lead their businesses.

Doer to Facilitator 

The key responsibility of a  functional leader is to recruit,& select, train & develop, and then manage people who specialize in specific business roles.On the other hand a business leader’s role is to lead the teams of functional experts and facilitate their efforts and  activities to solve problems and achieve team goals..

Gautam found himself caught up with this struggle to make this shift  as he was striving hard to meet the demands of his SBU. His GM Sales, for example wanted to immediately go to market with their new product which he thought would help him achieve his numbers. On the other hand his head of operations worried that they were not in a position to ramp up production so fast to meet this demand. Gautam’s role demanded that he balance the needs of his different functions, and keep an eye on the numbers without forgetting to pay enough attention to R & D and  innovation.This was not possible till Gautam realized that he had to be a facilitator rather than a manager.

How Gautam Evolved from  Manager to  Leader

Gautam was a high-performing Sales Manager with 15 years of rich experience at a well known Indian Engineering company. As company grew in sales and profits, he also grew in ranks and one day won his dream promotion to become the Business Head of company’s Gas-Turbines Division, a business with more than 1000 employees across the country. The company had decided to assign him this role to make him run a small but growing business unit with a dynamic and committed team. The plan was to give him an opportunity to transcend managing sales and marketing, learn to run a ‘Business’ and move his leadership skills to the next higher level. Everything seemed to be going on as planned, but within a few months Gautam was struggling to stay afloat along with the division. He was like many star performers who fail when they move from managing a department or a function to heading an SBU and for the first time in their career become accountable for a bottom-line and overall responsibility for various corporate functions. Like so many of his peers, Gautam had difficulty managing these multiple roles. In order to be a success in his new role of a business leader, Gautam needed to make the following shifts in his leadership and working style: (1) Micro Manager to a Macro Manager (2) Doer to Facilitator (3) Implementer to Designer (4) Solution finder to Pre-emptor (5) Fighter to Negotiator(6) Supporting actor to the Lead actor. Gautam, who was used to managing things for so many years, had a tough challenge ahead, moving into the above six new paradigms. We will see shortly how he evolved into the role of a leader by dint of his determination, with the support of his seniors and under the guidance of a coach.