New leaders need to prove themselves quickly, but the quest for quick results is inherently dangerous. What are the pitfalls, and how can managers avoid them?
The constant pursuit of a quick win is the biggest obstacle that prevents new leader Not Getting That Win. Realizing that they need quick wins to prove themselves, new leaders often stumble in their pursuit of early results.
In some cases, they manage to win, but the way they do it is not pretty, the side effects are extremely dangerous, and their leadership ability needs to be reconsidered. Newly appointed leaders who do not meet the requirements not only affect themselves but also drag down the performance of everyone around them, including their direct subordinates.
More than 60% of poor leaders have fallen into at least one of the five pitfalls listed below. These pitfalls are common among low-, mid-, and high-level leaders. Clearly, experience is not the deciding factor in avoiding this paradox.
Pitfall 1: Focusing too much on details
In search of quick wins, newly appointed leaders try to be the best at one aspect of their new job. Too focused on this goal, they fail to pay enough attention to larger responsibilities.
Take Loretta, a manager for a fast-food chain. It took Loretta three and a half years to rise to manager of a 20-store chain in a newly established district. Fearing that her colleagues might not trust her, she was eager to prove herself.
As a store manager, Loretta increased sales with product display and merchandising ideas. advertisement. So she decided to replicate this success across the district. When she noticed that other stores were arranged differently from the one she had previously managed, she rushed to learn about each store’s color scheme, counter space, and window advertising space.
It was easy to see how she got bogged down in the details, but the results were disastrous. Because she was so personally focused on the details, the rest of the team didn’t see their role in the process. She didn’t create a common understanding that would allow the store management team to apply her display and advertising ideas to their locations. Most of the ideas were opaque to them, and she missed many of the operational issues they considered to be top priorities.
Within nine months, what had been a quick win turned into a quick loss. While traffic was up at some stores, overall sales across the chain were down year-over-year. She was eventually reassigned to a marketing position.
Pitfall 2: Reacting negatively to criticism
Based on success in their previous position, a manager may feel entitled and when not everyone welcomes the changes they propose, they view criticism as an act of aggression and may even seek revenge.
With new leaders who have this tendency, the desire for a quick win will make this tendency even more evident. Consider Denise's case as well.
She started her career at Silicon Valley as a member, then became a sales team leader, then promoted to direct sales division director for the intermediate market, then to global sales and marketing director. With the mission of making all divisions grow at a rate of 30% within 6 months, she immediately got to work.
After three months, she received her first performance reviews, and they weren't all good. Her new team members thought she was pushing herself too hard. promote products not in tune with customer preferences and not listening to objections.
Instead of looking at the comments and learning from them, Denise saw the criticism as evidence of a change-resistant group that was not backing down. She chided them for not standardizing their sales strategy and continued with her plan. By the end of the six-month period, sales had dropped significantly. Realizing that her goals were unattainable, Denise decided to leave the organization.
Trap 3: Threatening Others
As is natural when new leaders are promoted, those around them become fearful of them. Overconfident in their plans, they confuse obedience with approval from their subordinates.
Yun Lin is an example. He was a rising star in the organization. After eight years as vice president of the trade credit business of an Asia-Pacific financial services firm, he was promoted to CEO. Yun Lin felt he had proven himself and was one step away from becoming the head of the entire company. Yun Lin was confident that he had the knowledge to identify and overcome any obstacles to achieve a quick win.
Unfortunately, he intimidated his team with his contemptuous and commanding manner. As a result, Yun Lin was not supported by his subordinates and his sales were 20% below target. Yun Lin came up with a strategy to turn things around, but his team was no longer enthusiastic. After 9 months of no progress, with no chance of promotion in the near future, he left the company.
Pitfall 4: Jumping to Conclusions
Some leaders who hope for a quick win are too hasty to do so. Those around them will feel that this leader has all the solutions ready without needing anyone's participation.
That was the problem for Dan, a leader in a military food contractor. Before his promotion, he was an engineer on a project team that handled high-profile customers. He then moved to oversee a different team, tasked with developing custom services for three other customers.
The deadline for the assignment was short, and Dan was worried that the new team would take time to get up to speed. So he conducted a quick analysis of customer needs, extrapolating from previous projects rather than gathering new data. The analysis convinced him that the original product design needed only minor changes and that the service could be developed for new customers in half the time expected.
He pushed for new designs himself, requiring everyone on the team to focus on technical documentation, vendor contracts, and customer management. Dan worked quickly, but inefficiently. He chose solutions before understanding the customer’s needs. Two out of three customers rejected the team’s work. Dan was reassigned to another position.
Pitfall 5: Micromanagement
New leaders often make the mistake of interfering in work they should trust others to do. Unwilling to take the time to help subordinates understand and participate in the overall plan or goals, but fearful that their decisions and actions will not be consistent with those goals, these leaders only evaluate when the results are in and manager trivial, detail
Jane is an example. After 18 months as a customer service representative, she was promoted to lead call center supervisor. To prove herself in her new position, she set a goal of increasing her team’s first-call resolution rate to at least 10%. Determined to achieve her goal, she began scrutinizing her subordinates’ daily productivity, requiring them to resolve any service issue or unusual situation while she was around.
Her subordinates quickly complained that they had no freedom to make decisions about service issues. They felt unacknowledged and, worse, that they were being overlooked for the goals Jane had set. Within five months, the first-call resolution rate had dropped to 15% and staff were becoming increasingly unenthusiastic. Ultimately, instead of being seen as a promoted leader, Jane was caught in a plan to overhaul the call center.
In each of these examples, we have deliberately highlighted one type of failure, but it will not surprise readers to learn that such leaders often fall prey to several pitfalls at once. For example, leaders who are too detail-oriented are prone to jumping to conclusions and micromanaging. We consider them “growth-oriented” leaders. Leaders who react negatively to criticism are often intimidating. We call them “nothing to learn” leaders.
But abandoning the pursuit of quick results is not the way to avoid these pitfalls. The most successful new leaders are those who tirelessly pursue quick wins. But they do it differently. Instead of stepping on others to prove themselves, they pursue what we call “team-based quick wins,” achievements that move the whole team forward.
Article by Mark E. Van Buren and Todd Safferstone on Harvard Business Review
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