Becoming a Director in the Same Company

because you're in this position and the opportunities are opening up to you and the higher up there are encouraging you to step up, then there's not a whole lot of support for I need to be able to calm that path. So then the onus and responsibility lies on you to make sure that you're in that transition to from tactical to strategic so that you can open up opportunities, time and energy, intellectual and bandwidth so that you can open that up to take on those opportunities. I'm Dr. Grace Lee and you're listening to the Career Revisionist podcast for executives, team leaders, people and managers and ambitious professionals from all backgrounds. It's for those among us who can't stay stagnant and admire anyone who demonstrates exponential growth. We challenge ourselves to step out of our comfort zone and into higher levels of leadership. And we are determined to rise confidently in our industry so that we can make our greatest contribution using our knowledge and expertise. We have worked hard to become great at what we do, but only so we can achieve the goals that give our lives meaning and purpose. And while we persevere through a college education to get us here with our technical skills, we understand that to get to the next level where we desire to be, it requires a different kind of skills. And we're not comfortable with failure because we experience satisfaction when we are advancing. And while some of us work well under pressure, all of us perform the best when we are part of a winning team. And instead of just hoping to achieve what's important to us, we choose to become a more optimized version of ourselves to make it happen. We're not just A players. We are A plus players and we are the source of consistent output that makes positive advancements in the world around us. Picture this. You've been working in the same company for a while. It could be decades. It could be more. And you've been operating at a senior management. You've been established as a manager. And maybe some of your higher ups have been talking to you about the ascension into director level positions. And maybe some of them have even been grooming you to take on that role. And you yourself, you see there are opportunities for growth. You see there are opportunities to take on bigger responsibilities. But the challenge is how do I get there? How do I ensure that I have the right experience? How can I ensure I can do the job well in director? And more importantly, how can I ensure that I have the time? Because your current projects are taking up so much of your time. Your responsibilities and execution and implementing ideas is taking up so much of your time that when it comes to taking on higher level strategic leadership and higher level visionary responsibilities, you don't have the time or the energy to take that on. And this is the biggest challenge I see when it comes to moving from manager to director within the same company is that there's a lot of time and energy that needs to be devoted to higher level strategy to being involved in executive level director level decisions that your current implementation and execution tasks as a manager are so time consuming. They are also mentally and intellectually time consuming and energetically consuming that how do we jump up into that role? How do we move transition to a higher level role like that? So this video I want to share with you is some key considerations. There's unique challenges. There are unique considerations for this. And what are they? And how can you implement that in your career growth right now? When a company is growing, the first thing that you experience is that there are opportunities that open up, opportunities to stop up in higher level positions. And you might also see a shift in leadership. Someone that was once your manager steps up into a higher level position as well and leadership starts to move upwards as well. And you might see a lot of transitions, promotions, people taking on bigger responsibilities. You might see that. But what may be difficult to see is with the reason why that happens. And the reason why is because when an organization is growing, people are moving. It's a constant movement from tactical to strategic. Tactical, it means the implementation, the execution of ideas and projects. Strategic is the higher level, the big picture of things that are aligned with fiscal responsibilities, visions of the whole company and where they want to be. But that's strategic. So you yourself, if you want to take on more strategic level roles, which is what a director level role is, it wouldn't be wise for you yourself to be moving from tactical to strategic. So with that in mind, the four key considerations, the essence of the mall comes down to how can we be in a position to move, make that movement along with our higher ups, along with the whole company. The whole company is also making that transition from tactical to strategic. And that is the way that they grow, that is the way they sustain their success in the marketplace. And more importantly, that is how they can ensure that all the right people, all the best people, all the experienced people are from the top down in the right seats to make the strategy, to create the vision and to paint that picture and communicate that vision all the way down. That's the only way to ensure that is when people are moving tactical to strategic. Unfortunately, because you're in this position and the opportunities are opening up to you and the higher up there are encouraging you to step up, then there's not a whole lot of support for I need to be able to calm that path. So then the onus and responsibility lies on you to make sure that you're in that transition from tactical to strategic so that you can open up opportunities, time and energy, intellectual and bandwidth, so that you can open that up to take on those opportunities. So here are the four key considerations. There's four key considerations for making that movement within the same happening. Consideration number one, having the right people in the right seats. Now you've been a manager for quite some time. Chances are you've had a team, you've led teams and projects as well, some of them might be cross-functional. And every individual on your team was involved in tactical implementation activities to implement projects and goals and vision and so on. So when you're for taking a step further, higher is strategic. It would be wise for you to build a team around those roles that you used to be implementing and being able to offload those. They were one strategic for you to do, but because now you're stepping up into director-level roles in the same company, those activities that you used to do that you now do really well, that you're now an expert in, those now need to be handed off to the right people. And it's a round building in the right team of people in the right seats and coaching them to do what you used to do well. So that is the key consideration number one. Key consideration number two, having clearly documented processes around each role so that you can set up your team members for success. Now why is that important? Documentation of processes. The reason why is because what you are delegating to these team members, the right team members are the areas in which you are successful in implementing. They were activities that you are highly familiar with that people have relied on you for and you've developed your own expertise around them. But it's time to let go of these activities because you desire to move up to director-level positions and you can't be spending time in tactical implementation. But this is your expertise. This was your implementation. This was your process as well. And if you are delegating that successfully, it would be wise for the person that you're the people that you're delegating to to understand how to be successful in that as well. And eventually they too will become implementation expertise. They to become successful at executing the vision and the goals of each project as well. So when things are clearly documented, this helps you to be able to delegate that success. But it also helps your team member to take on that responsibility with clarity on what they are to do, what the expectations are, and also their metrics for success. So this is key consideration number two. If this situation then describing resonates with you, for example, you've been with your company as a manager for quite some time and some of your higher ups really are approaching you, encouraging you to step up and you're seeing growth in the company and their opportunities to become a director. And you know that you can succeed there, that you want to make sure that you contribute value to the company. If this is you and it resonates with you, then I invite you to work with me. Every single week I trained managers, experience, established managers and directors and above on how to be effective leading their teams, how to be effective building visions, how to be effective at understanding people and human behaviors so that you can build meaningful relationships based on trust and intrinsic motivation. And so if that's you and you're serious about this achieving this career growth for yourself, then below this video in the first link is a link to a book of call and speak to one of my trusted career advisors. And this is just to explore whether or not it is the right fit your situation working with me. And if it is, then I look forward to personally mentoring you on the other side. Key consideration number three is understanding and appreciate