The Trek to Leadership
Becoming a leader is no longer just about you and your goals – a new definition of success
An unexpected feeling of insignificance and being lost in-between the technical team and upper management
For as long as I can remember, leadership has always been one of my top career goals. It’s easy to daydream about how wonderful and satisfying it will feel when you crush your dreams - but does it feel as momentous as expected? The morning I took my first step into the leadership ring as an official team lead, it had been a long time coming. The road to leadership was twisted, rooted, windy and straight uphill. I had to be the solo voice in a crowd and learned to pivot when I heard “no” several hundred times. There was a moment when management told me very bluntly that there was absolutely no need to have a person in leadership with my skill set – ouch!
My trek to leadership was made more difficult with my RED personality. Focusing on the goal at the top of the mountain is easy for me as an individual. However, learning to work as a cohesive team and bring others up with me was a new concept. To summit, you need to have a strong technical, trusted team by your side. I have always had control over myself and my actions, but no matter how much I work on my self-awareness, I can still be domineering and intimidating. I never want to lead with fear no matter how effective or accepted it may be within certain industries. I’ve had my fair share of dauntless RED bosses and I do not want to impose the same sharpness on my team. I battle the daily fear of judgement and fear of failing. However, the most prominent fear is that I am being too RED. I still battle personality clashes when I meet someone new or interact with individuals on the opposite side of the personality spectrum – GREENs especially. Little did I know, but these human interactions are everything in leadership.
I focused so much on the uphill mountainous grind to get to leadership that I didn’t stop to think about what happens when you get there. When I reached the first peak on my path, I didn’t fully realize I would be stepping off my technical track and into a support role. I’m a strong independent RED – support is not one of my strongest traits. I worked hard to get a scientific degree and never considered that I would have to shift focus to non-academic interpersonal skills. I was no longer waist-high in the weeds with the team solving complex problems and figuring out the details. Instead, I became a support staff to twenty young, bright minds. Like a lot of typical REDs, I had always measured my success on tangible products - how many problems I solved and how many reports I published. My days were now spent strategizing, supporting, organizing and coordinating – how does one measure achievement without concrete outputs? I quickly started to feel irrelevant and lost. I was spending all my time trying to help members of my team accomplish their personal goals, the overall team meet their targets, and help the company with their vision. Personal success shifted to be a direct reflection of the team or company’s success, except without any credit.
It is middle management that makes the wheel turn so easily and smoothly (most of the time) that none of your team realizes it’s you inside the wheel manually making it turn. Suddenly no one knew what I did everyday and I didn’t quite fit in with the flow of the daily technical team and I certainly didn’t fit in with upper management. My definition of success had drastically changed, and I struggled to feel valued. It sounds contradictory to get the promotion and title yet left feeling more insignificant than ever. Today, I still struggle with the shift in the definition of leadership ‘success’ and where I fit within the organization. It is so important to take a few moments to celebrate our personal small wins and give ourselves a break. It’s not selfish to give yourself a pat on the back and feel the accomplishments of others and know that you had a had in their success. I love what I do and it’s up to me to navigate the next leg of the climb and to feel the satisfaction that what I do matters.
