You have worked hard and you have just gotten that promotion you have always wanted and certainly earned. You have never supervised or been held responsible for other’s job performance and productivity. Now what?

If you can define answers to these fundamental management questions and truly understand how they can or will affect you in your new group leadership role, you can position yourself to maximize your group’s ultimate productivity.

DEFINE WHAT IS EXPECTED OF YOU AS A “MANAGER”.

What are the performance objectives of your work group?
Are the group’s performance expectations measurable?
Are the performance expectations tied to a timeline?
Are the objectives realistic?
Are the performance objectives relevant – worth pursuing?

DEFINE RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO MEET FUTURE DEMANDS.

What internal and external resources are available to you?
What resources available do you actually have control?
Are the resources enough to meet performance expectations?
Understand how to get more support if you find the need.

DEFINE WHO TO INTERACT WITH FOR MAXIMUM PRODUCTIVITY.

Who within your company affects performance in your group?
Who outside the company can affect group performance?
Can you realistically affect these influential parties?
What support can you expect if you find you need it?

DEFINE WHAT VIABLE LEADERSHIP AUTHORITY YOU HAVE.

Can your supervisor clearly define your authority levels?
At what point or level does you supervisor want involved?
Are you given more responsibility than authority needed?
What recourses do you have to address poor group results?

Any organization, be it a for profit company, government entity or non-profit group, is often made up of groups of people who collectively seek overall “success” for their organization. As a group leader or manager you can best drive success for your segment of the organization by being consistently proactive in defining the span influence and control of your own leadership role. This is a constant and ever changing process. Circumstances both inside the organization and affects from outside require successful managers to gauge their role and contributions within the four segments defined above.

When you think about it, each group within any organization, and each member within for that matter, should only demand and use just enough or the organization’s resources to maximize their productivity. Any use or demand of resources that is more or less than what actually is required makes for unnecessary frustration, confusion and waste.

Ideally it is the successful manager that constantly adjusts what is needed to leverage their own group control, support, influence and their ultimate accountability within the organization. This leadership skill set does not come natural to people. A manager must understand the need for their constant definition of their own role within their organization and the consequences of proactively communicating same to each of their subordinates, showing them how their responsibilities and contributions affect the organization as a whole.

As organizations grow and diversify as a response to ever changing demands of them from their constituents, they naturally become more dependent on their managers. More often than not, the organization does not effectively clarify what is expected of their managers. One cannot expect the organization to make your management responsibilities easier – it is up to you to do that for yourself.

::: more Mark Smock articles
::: more Leadership articles