Leadership is about influence and leverage. To succeed, you
need to harness the energy of others. The higher you rise in an organization, the more you play the role of company architect. Recruiting is romance. Employment is marriage. What works well in one organization or role may fail in another. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to leading change. Your ability to adapt and self-manage depends on both self- awareness and personal discipline. When you transition into a role in which you have to lead your former peers, the first step is to accept that those relationships must change. The higher you climb in an organization the more you must play the role of the organizational architect. Effective delegation requires you to translate higher-level goals into specific jobs, fill those jobs with competent people you trust, and establish metrics to monitor their progress. How you approach delegation varies based on whether you are delegating tasks, projects, processes, or outcomes. For example, outcomes require more strategic context than tasks. According to a study on leadership transitions, executives plan and implement change in waves. The first wave of change follows a period of focused learning. Then, the executive regroups to focus on deeper learning about the organization and to allow people to adapt to the initial changes. Armed with more actionable insight, the executive implements another wave of deeper change. From there, the executive focuses on fine-tuning to maximize performance until moving on to a new leadership transition either via a promotion with the same company or a new job with a new company. For more on this, see When a New Manager Takes Charge by John J. Gabarro.