“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker
Whether you’re leading a multi-million dollar business, nonprofit, or church, how are you actually preparing your leaders to succeed?
Here’s a common pattern you’ve probably seen:
- Sarah crushes her sales numbers? Boom—she’s promoted to Sales Director.
- Alex can debug any code? Congratulations—you’re now Engineering Manager.
- Rita masters every machine on the factory floor? Here’s your crew of 40 to supervise.
As servant leaders stewarding our organization’s mission and resources, what does it really mean to set our leaders up for success?
Here are some practical situations to consider. Have your leaders ever had to:
- Address attendance, dependability, or reliability issues with a team member?
- Handle a team member’s underperformance or failure to meet expectations?
- Mediate or resolve conflict between two team members?
- Confront someone about a negative attitude or unprofessional behavior?
- Explain why someone didn’t receive an expected raise, promotion, or bonus?
- Discuss personal hygiene, appearance, or workspace habits affecting the team?
- Deliver termination or layoff news?
- Address a policy violation with an employee?
- Lead a project they had serious concerns about from the start?
- Deal with a fellow leader whose actions harmed the organization or violated standards?
To the CEOs and Executive Directors reading this: You know this pain. You’ve watched high-performing individual contributors become struggling managers, taking entire teams down with them. You’ve seen the cost of turnover, low morale, and the productivity drain of poor leadership. Ouch.
To the new supervisors: You didn’t ask for this. One day you were the go-to expert in your field. The next day you’re managing people, navigating conflicts, and having conversations you were never trained for. You’re drowning in responsibilities you never signed up for, wondering why nobody prepared you. Ugh.
Leadership was never about the corner office or the title on your business card. Servant leadership has always been about one thing—serving.
Serving the organization well means setting up your leaders for success.
Here’s the good news: Leading others is learnable.
Just like riding a bike, there will be some wobbles and hopefully not too many bruises. But if we keep faithfully serving others through leadership, it becomes a gift—not just to your organization, but to every person whose life you touch as a leader.
Stop chancing it and break the cycle of promoting people into failure…
10 Keys of Effective Supervision™ Course will show you exactly how to build the leadership skills that create thriving teams and healthy organizational cultures.
Want to discuss how we can support your leadership development efforts? Email us at info@risingsunconsultants.com – we’d love to explore how we can come alongside your organization.
