9 How Do I Gain Leadership?

Julia didn’t feel at all prepared to take over the organization’s leadership. Julia hadn’t at all expected to do so. When the organization’s leader left, Julia assumed that the board would go outside the organization to find a new leader. Julia didn’t really sense that any of the few staff members or many volunteers would necessarily make a good leader. And none of the organization’s donors or board members seemed interested in stepping in as a leader. The board had thus surprised Julia when it invited her to interview for the leader position and surprised Julia even more when it chose her to lead. Julia’s problem, though, was that she hadn’t prepared at all. Now that she was in leadership, Julia just hoped that everyone would give her a chance to grow in the role. She also wished that she had prepared.

Preparation

Preparing for leadership is one way to gain leadership. You can prepare for leadership. Leaders aren’t only born. Leaders are also made. Indeed, if you’re interested in leadership, then you should prepare. You don’t have to fall into leadership or back into leadership, while ill prepared. Doing so can make for a short and unsuccessful leadership term. The leadership mantle falls on some without their having sought it or expected it. Others pursue leadership until the opportunity arises. In either case, those who choose leaders generally do so after identifying leadership skills, attitudes, and attributes that the candidate displays. Thus, if you wish to lead, consider preparing to lead, both so that you display leadership skills, attitudes, and attributes and so that when you have your first opportunity to lead, you make a better go of it because you have prepared.

Instruction

As to how to prepare for leadership, formal leadership training is certainly available. All kinds of programs offer instruction in leadership. Formal programs of education, especially in higher education but even at the secondary school level, may offer courses or units instructing in leadership. Business schools and their management programs, and schools of education and their education-leadership programs, take special interest in preparing students for leadership. Other professional programs, in law for instance, do so as well. Leadership courses may be for only a credit or two and may be an interregnum course, completed in condensed fashion over a school break. But leadership courses are also available from professional and trade associations, sometimes to satisfy continuing education requirements, and in post-graduate programs and seminars, bringing alumni back to their alma mater. Leadership instruction tends to focus on the leadership skills, attributes, and responsibilities addressed in the prior chapters. Leadership instruction can also focus on theories or styles of leadership, all helpful to discerning one’s own gifts and preferences.

Equipping

You don’t, though, have to pursue formal education in leadership to get the exposure and experience you need for leadership. Co-curricular programs such as student councils, team sports, and student clubs, in schools at all levels from secondary school through college and into graduate or professional school, can serve well for leadership experience. Professional and trade association volunteer work can likewise offer leadership experience. The field in which you work likely has some licensing or volunteer membership association with a governing board, advisory boards, standing committees, and special task forces. Volunteering for that service can introduce you to leaders in your field, enable you to work closely with them on professional or trade matters, and offer you opportunities to chair committees or boards, or lead a task force. Your workplace may also have units, teams, and task forces where you can, with reasonable initiative, find leadership opportunities to build experience. Volunteer for leadership opportunities, to gain the experience before you need it.

Credentials

Credentials may play only a limited role in qualifying for leadership positions. Credentials are necessary to enter a trade or field requiring licensure or certification. Qualifying for a license or certification under state law may require education, examination, and in some cases supervised experience in the field. Then, everyone in the trade or field has the same basic credentials. To advance into leadership positions in the trade or field, though, may not require any further credential. Gaining leadership positions may instead take distinguishing performance within the field. Some credentials, like an extra graduate degree or special fellowship, may give a leadership candidate a leg up. Yet generally, the individuals and entities choosing leaders look to especially dedicated, diligent, committed, and inspired on-the-job performance, along with leadership character, skills, and attributes, to distinguish the leadership candidate. Earn any extra credentials you can that may improve your leadership skills and hone your leadership attributes. But overall, distinguish yourself for leadership by performance, not credentials.

Pursuit

Like other things in life, leadership positions often go to those who pursue them. Leadership may fall on you like fresh dew in the morning, or pluck you out of a full field of similar flowers, without your having sought it. But more likely, you will need to express some interest in leadership and perhaps even overtly apply for leadership positions in full pursuit of them, before you gain a leadership position. Generally, you shouldn’t apply for a leadership position for which you are not yet qualified. Yet applying for a leadership position when you’re unsure of your qualifications can teach you about both the necessary qualifications and the application process. Your pursuit of leadership positions for which you arguably qualify may lead to your enhancing your qualifications and improving your presentation. Your pursuit may also alert others to your interest, leading to your recruitment for other positions. Generally, letting others know of your leadership interest, especially others who care about your success, is a good way of learning of opportunities and moving closer toward leadership. Wisdom would generally discourage telling an enemy that you intend to replace them as leader. But letting allies know may give you the opportunity you seek.

Process

Teams and organizations follow different processes for selecting their leaders. You should investigate the process for gaining the leadership position that you seek. Teams that organize and perform without an owner, director, or supervisor generally choose their leaders by team consensus. That consensus may or may not require formal nominations and votes, depending on the team’s size and customs. But in that case, you have little more to do than maintain your good relations and display your good leadership character at all times while on and around the team. Larger organizations, especially professional and trade associations, choose leaders through a formal process, one likely dictated by the organization’s bylaws and supported by custom. The process may include nominations to a governance or executive committee followed by committee evaluation and recommendation, and board vote. If the process for the position you seek requires nomination, consult a respected colleague about nominating you. Prefer colleague nomination over self-nomination, even if the organization allows self-nomination.

Workplace

The process for identifying and selecting leaders may differ in the workplace. In the workplace, executives, directors, managers, and supervisors may choose leaders on their own without a formal process. Executives, for instance, tend to select their own leadership team. They may rely on their own daily interactions to identify potential candidates or may consult with only one, two, or a handful of confidantes who know available and well-qualified candidates. The executive may announce the executive’s leadership choices to the organization’s board, which may play a limited role in advising and consenting to the choices. A mid-level manager or director may similarly identify preferred candidates for promotion to unit leadership, from daily workplace interactions, getting the executive’s approval for the choice. Executives and managers don’t, though, rely solely on their own interactions with leadership candidates. They may regard as just as significant how your co-workers regard your character for leadership. To gain workplace promotion to leadership, you may thus need to maintain your composure and have your leadership skills and attributes on display at all times, not just to impress the executive.

Application

You’ve just seen that gaining a leadership position may not follow the traditional process organizations generally maintain for applying for employment. Organizations generally post open positions online. You may or may not find leadership positions in your field posted online, along with other employment opportunities. Organizations often hire for leadership positions without posting those positions online. They instead hire leaders internally or from a wider field including some external candidates who learn of the opportunity through specific personal recruitment or word of mouth. A traditional employment application process would generally include completing an online application form with or without online submission of a cover letter of interest accompanied by a resume. Even if you seek a leadership position through an informal rather than formal process, consider preparing a cover letter and resume. The discipline of doing so may help you prepare for an interview or other aspects of the informal process. The organization may also, at some point in its informal process or even after completing the process with your offer of hire, ask you for a cover letter and resume.

Selection

Once you apply for a leadership position through whatever formal or informal process the organization follows, treat the selection process with both patience and respect. Some organizations do a good job of keeping leadership candidates informed of the selection status, while others do not. Leadership selection processes can also take twists and turns, resulting in delays. You may not understand some of those twists, turns, and delays. You also may not appreciate the organization’s inability or unwillingness to keep you reasonably informed of the status. If you cannot patiently await an update, because of other pending opportunities or for other reasons, then politely communicate your concern to the organization’s contact person managing the selection process. Treat everyone respectfully, even if you do not feel the respect returning. In selection processes, everything is a test. Your willingness to respect the organization’s process, even when it appears to you that the organization may be passing you over for selection, may redound to your benefit. The other candidate they choose may, for instance, either decline an offer or not work out after a short leadership term, after which the selection committee may return to you. Demonstrate your respect and integrity, even if the organization does not show its own respect and integrity in a poorly managed process. Its failure to do so may be why the organization needs you.

Interview

Organizations often interview leadership candidates. An elaborate process may include preliminary interviews of a larger number of selected candidates, followed by a second and final interview of a smaller number of candidates. Your interview may be by a task force or team specially assembled to choose a candidate or recommend a candidate to the organization’s membership or board. If the organization identifies for you in advance the members of the interview team, and you don’t already know them, then take that opportunity to do some respectful background research on them. Check the organization’s website for biographies, and check any other online professional listings. Don’t snoop, but do your homework, so that you know your interviewers’ professional experience and can engage them respectfully and intelligently in your interview. Brainstorm in advance every leadership question you can imagine your interviewers might ask, not only about your leadership qualifications but also about your plans for leading the organization. Unless you are confident that you know the organization’s needs and have just the right plan to address them, avoid committing to specific leadership plans without having appropriate information and advice from your team. Instead, suggest alternative leadership strategies to explore and pursue, and leadership styles you may deploy, to lead the organization forward.

References

You may need to offer leadership references as part of your selection process. Identify others respected in your field from whom you can gain advance approval to share their name with the organization to act as a reference regarding your leadership skills. Include among your references not only distinguished leaders who know your general reputation and good character but also one or two references who know your specific leadership skills and attributes from having worked closely with you. Consider asking one or more of your references for a recommendation letter, too, which you might then include along with your cover letter and resume, if written submissions are part of your leadership application process. Even if you don’t anticipate a formal request for references in the course of your leadership pursuit, consider whom you might ask, and consider asking them in advance. Don’t get caught flat footed without references, in the event that the organization surprises you with a reference request late in the process or even after making you a leadership offer.

Founders

You don’t necessarily have to impress others to the point of your selection, in order to gain a leadership position. You may instead be able to form your own team, unit, or organization to lead, as its founder. Some great leaders begin in leadership by leading their own organization. You may begin with a small stand-alone volunteer program or with a similar program as an adjunct to an established organization. You may alternatively gain your employer’s support to begin a small business unit within the employer’s organization. You may then soon form your own charitable or business organization to lead. That organization may grow, giving you ever greater leadership opportunities. From there, with your own established leadership base that you formed and founded, others may invite you to lead their organizations. If you don’t see leadership opportunities elsewhere, then make your own.

Reflection

On a scale from one to ten, how prepared do you feel you are for the leadership position you seek or hold? What can you do to prepare yourself better? Do you have any further education in leadership that you can pursue? Is a co-curricular or volunteer program available to you that would give you leadership exposure and experience? Do you have an extra degree, license, certification, or other credential you could earn to distinguish yourself for leadership? Who knows that you are interested in leadership? Do you need to let your workplace leader, director, or other supervisor know of your interest? Would doing so help or hurt your chances for leadership promotion? What process can you discern for seeking the leadership position you desire? Do you need someone to nominate you, or would it help to have someone promote your leadership rather than you doing so on your own? Is a formal application process available for the leadership position you seek? Who will make the preliminary review of your leadership interest or application? Who will make the final decision? If you have a leadership candidate interview upcoming, what do you know or what can you find out about the interviewer or interviewers? What questions do you expect them to ask you? Do you have respected references already arranged? If you cannot discern leadership opportunities, can you start a program, unit, or organization to lead on your own, as its founder?

Key Points

Preparing for leadership can be key to gaining leadership and success.
Your educational program may include leadership instruction.
Seek co-curricular and volunteer opportunities for leader experience.
Complete any credentials that may be necessary or helpful to lead.
Let trusted others know of your interest in leadership positions.
Learn the application process for leadership positions you seek.
Your workplace promotion to leadership may depend on performance.
Complete the application process appropriately for positions you seek.
Respect the selection process including its twists and turns.
Prepare for interviews including learning about the interviewers.
Recruit references in advance before you need them.
Found and lead your own organization if other opportunities fail.

Read Chapter 10.