Breaking the Mould - Technically Savvy to Relationship Builder

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Nicci Statham, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

I’ve had many conversations over the last few weeks with many people, including existing clients, who want to develop their people leadership skills. The discussions were around how to focus on the crossover from being very technically good in your field to becoming a leader – managing, motivating people and building relationships. I work with many clients who have this challenge…solicitors, accountants, finance experts, IT or digital consultants.

I have a huge empathy for this journey! I started out as an accountant years ago and the skills I developed were predominantly technical, back office, in the background completing the technical stuff or writing systems reports. And the outputs in many ways were clear cut…there were set formats, ‘right’ answers, clear frameworks, regulations to check or follow.

These days the skills and, more importantly, ways of being I lead with are completely at the opposite end of the spectrum. I have much compassion for clients who are making this transition in skills (and the accompanying confidence) to operate successfully at a higher level in their businesses. This can be immensely daunting – and terrifying.

If you are a leader or manager in a company or indeed a partner or owner…a large part of what is required now as you move to the next level is relationship building, generating connections and new business, leading and motivating people, handling staff challenges or conflicts.

What’s required is completely different, and for some, way out of their comfort zone! Now you’re no longer dealing with rules, regulations, research, data, optimisation, frameworks, plans, sets of accounts…now there’s a great deal of letting go required…less doing, less direction, more empowerment.

Now your realm is a huge set of unknowns…in the mix with all those different personalities and reactions, and of course, the unpredictability of humanity.

So as well as getting yourself out there to connect and build relationships with existing or potential clients, you now need to grow you as a leader WITH your team.

Skills and qualities you may not have exercised much before such as trust, intuition, clarity, vision, purpose, being visible, openness, having honest conversations, saying no, delegating, patience, emotional resilience, compassion…are calling you out on a daily basis.

So let’s say for instance you’re in a meeting or an event and you’re way out of your comfort zone. Here are 3 tips to support you to bridge the transition:

Listen In – to your thoughts…how are you telling yourself you need to be? And what are you expecting the outcome to be?
Check-In – with those expectations…and assumptions…often we make judgements or assumptions about what’s expected of us or others. Or we can hold a ideal expectation of ourselves based on what we see as the ‘perfect’ person or solution. How do you know that these assumptions or expectations are true?
Be Yourself…Be Curious! – be courageous and be yourself, let go of expectations. Interact as you normally would, ask questions, be openly curious about others or the situation. This is especially important if you have a team. What’s their take, what do they want? What do they think the solution(s) are?
Let me know how it goes!

Learn how to transform your willingness to be courageous, get past those expectations about yourself and others. Step into the unknown and step up to the next level in your leadership. And learn how to develop skills that will transform you from uncomfortableness to curious excitement.

Join me in a FREE 1hr 1:1 coaching session to discover how to make this powerful and empowering transition.

I can’t wait to hear from you…

Bye for now…

Nicci