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.