Shawn was just promoted to his first leadership role. Now he’s facing a number of challenges as he’s trying to settle into his new role. Two of his team members are clashing heads on a critical project. Meanwhile, Shawn is trying to find the most effective management techniques and learning to delegate instead of doing everything himself. The transition to his first leadership role is bumpy and it is a common experience for new leaders.
What are the challenges of a first-time leader? During my time coaching emerging leaders, I have identified 12 common obstacles managers face when transitioning into leadership positions. The biggest hurdle for ICs (individual contributors) to people leaders is often the identity shift. Instead of being in charge of your individual contribution, you are now in charge of leading others to produce the results you are responsible for. This seems daunting at first. Your ability to meet these challenges head-on will be essential for long-term success.
These challenges can become the foundation for leadership success as you learn to address each one. Here’s a set of practical ways to help you overcome these obstacles.
The 12 Most Common Challenges of Emerging Leaders
1. Driving Team Achievement.
Leading a team to success, as opposed to performing well individually, brings new challenges that all leaders must face. As a leader, it is no longer enough to excel in simply your own role: instead, you must also nurture team collaboration and motivate others to achieve the desired outcomes.
With employees of different backgrounds and interests all working together with the common goal, you will need actively to manage your team dynamics – communicating expectations clearly and often, and ensuring that each individual understands their role.
Doing this requires patience, empathy, trust-building skills, and excellent communication skills. Ultimately, while it may be more difficult than leading solely as an individual contributor at first; getting used to directing a team of people can lead to bigger rewards for both you and your teammates.
2. Prioritizing Competing Demands.
Being able to identify the most pressing needs, prioritizing your work, and delegating appropriately can be difficult for someone new to people leadership. In addition, finding the balance between doing and delegating is often a challenge to emerging leaders.
New and future leaders must also recognize that their own opinions may not always take precedence, but understanding when to adopt or adapt an existing idea can be invaluable. An effective strategy for prioritizing these competing demands is to set clear goals that align with organizational objectives, then manage progress systematically.
With specific objectives and expected outcomes, it becomes easier for the leader to decide which tasks should receive emphasis and determine their relative importance. By following this systematic approach, new leaders will be better able to allocate resources and manage competing demands effectively.
3. Leading former peers.
It takes emotional intelligence, awareness, confidence, and interpersonal skills for a new leader to move into a position of authority among an existing team of colleagues. As a new leader, you must be able to shift your status quo – from one of equality among peers to one where you project authority beyond your title to earn the respect you need to lead. Emerging leaders who excel in this transition commonly have learned the skill of leading without authority (influence).
Leadership requires motivation, guidance, and accountability, yet these things may feel difficult when dealing with those who once worked on the same terms as themselves—a situation that can be made more difficult than leading complete strangers.
Leading former peers is difficult because it may create feelings of resentment, or discomfort among the employees. To reduce this discomfort, you should show genuine respect for everyone regardless of their roles within the company. A key success factor in leading regardless of formal authority is to model desired behavior, have an unbiased outlook, provide positive feedback and encouragement when appropriate, utilize creativity to foster engagement, and understand the strengths and challenges of each member of your team, including your own, and to be transparent in your decision-making.
4. Motivating And Inspiring.
New leaders face the challenge of motivating and inspiring their teams. This can be both a daunting and exhilarating task at the same time.
The key to becoming an effective leader is recognizing that people respond to different styles of motivation differently. The ability to recognize positive behavior and reward it in meaningful ways goes a long way to motivating team members and holding them accountable for their performance.
It’s also important for new leaders to foster an environment where mistakes are seen as learning opportunities and every team member has an equal voice in discussions, decisions, and goal-setting. By creating an atmosphere of encouragement rather than perfectionism, new leaders can motivate their teams to take risks, think creatively, and grow into better versions of themselves.
5. Balancing Your New Workload Without Burning Out
Being promoted to leadership is as exciting as it is often overwhelming, with pressure from senior leaders to consistently drive high-performance results. At the same time, your team needs your attention and you may face competing demands frequently.
To avoid a feeling of burnout, it is important for leaders to take time out of their busy schedules to relax and rejuvenate so they have the energy to continue leading their teams effectively. Engaging in activities such as exercise, mindfulness, and reading can help reduce stress levels.
Additionally, coaching your employees to thrive in their work and developing relationships among team members enables them to trust each other and better understand how to effectively collaborate and deliver critical work. This, in turn, helps to create a level of independence in their work, fuels their confidence, and drives better results.
Lastly, to avoid going into overdrive, new leaders need to focus on honing their prioritization skills (often mislabeled as time-management skills). Learning to prioritize effectively and erecting proper boundaries around what matters most will be key to retaining balance.
6. Political Savvy.
Being politically savvy requires that a leader possess an array of high-level skills such as understanding different stakeholder objectives and needs, exhibiting thoughtful judgment, adapting solutions to changing environments, and managing effective relationships with those closest to them.
It is a balancing act and navigation of ideas necessary to foster collaboration and mission achievement.
Subtle differences in opinion can be hard to bridge since there can be many complex layers in the decision-making process; however, with the proper guidance from their leader, teams can learn how to work together effectively and navigate these challenges.
As a consequence, political savvy should be seen not only as an attribute for leaders alone but for all employees and stakeholders involved.
7. Delegating Effectively And Holding People Accountable
It is essential for new leaders to remember that holding people accountable can be done through directness without being overly authoritarian. Communicating expectations clearly and ensuring everyone is on the same page before work is delegated can serve this purpose and avoid misunderstandings and rework.
Instead of relying on a punitive mindset every time someone makes a mistake or does not meet your expectations, you can communicate clear guidelines. Then, ask employees to repeat back to you what they understood before proceeding with their work.
Additionally, seeking input from team members is often beneficial for more effective accountability, as everyone feels heard and respected in the process. New leaders should aim to establish working relationships characterized by integrity and mutual trust instead of fear and coercion.
8. Recruiting Talent & Creating High-Performance Teams
Building a powerful team capable of achieving collective success requires the recruitment of talented individuals. They need to possess the skills to succeed in their current roles but also demonstrate an ability to grow within the organization.
As a leader, you are also responsible for coaching your team to achieve their personal best. This is different from telling people what to do and has a far-reaching impact. New leaders often wonder how they can navigate between delegating and coaching to drive performance without permanent autocracy.
It s important for leaders to foster a culture that promotes creative collaboration, mutual respect, and trust. For example, by taking initiative with challenging tasks, leaders can build strong working relationships that will help their companies to thrive in a competitive landscape.
9. Communicating Effectively In Remote Work And Hybrid Work Environments
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way of working for many leaders and their employees, forcing them to transition to remote or hybrid work environments.
This shift has brought with it many unique challenges – employees may now have multiple locations or be working from home, the company’s culture can become harder to maintain over long distances, and team members may feel disconnected.
Leaders must discover new ways to create a sense of togetherness and trust amongst employees even when they can’t be together in person. They must also develop new communication approaches as well as creative, clever ideas for staying connected across multiple time zones in different environments (see “High-Performance Virtual Work: How Leaders Create Effective Virtual Workplaces“). It is not an easy task, but it can be achieved with a bit of resourcefulness and thoughtful planning.
10. Resolving Interpersonal Conflict.
Leaders are often expected to be the masters of interpersonal conflict resolution and handle disagreements among team members with poise. Unfortunately, this kind of dynamic situation can present a variety of complex challenges that require experience to successfully address.
It’s important for any leader to remain impartial while respecting the thoughts, feelings, and perspectives of all involved parties. In addition, you must strive to maintain morale and productivity within the group.
Building trust creates an environment of mutual understanding and open discussion, allowing leaders to resolve interpersonal conflicts before they become overly emotional or lead to further discord.
Your leadership role requires finesse and practice – but when done well – it will help cultivate productive working relationships and ensure everyone remains focused on achieving their goals.
11. Connecting Across Differences
People come from different backgrounds and have diverse skill sets and perspectives to offer. Leaders must recognize these differences and accommodate them accordingly in order to effectively reach their goals.
One of the main obstacles leaders must overcome when connecting across differences is bridging different communication styles and scenarios. Leaders must adjust their own communication and leadership style to better relate to those they are managing and ensure everyone feels comfortable expressing their ideas.
By recognizing how diversity can bring a range of benefits and capitalizing on those differences with effective leadership communication, you will be able to successfully bridge any gaps that divide them.
12. External pressure
One particular type of difficulty that is frequently encountered by leaders is external pressure. This can range from pressure from shareholders to stay profitable, from industry peers to innovate and grow, or from the public to maintain a high level of integrity and customer satisfaction.
The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. – Stephen Covey Click To TweetOftentimes these pressures are conflicting, leaving leaders feeling pulled in many directions at once.
To offset this burden, it is important for leaders to find ways to mitigate the potential impact on their organization’s goals such as forming strategic partnerships, outsourcing certain tasks, or creating regular check-ins to ensure ongoing success in spite of external expectations. Keeping “the main thing the main thing” as Stephen Covey is often quoted, is important to keep the company’s priorities front and center.
Other Challenges You May Face As A Leader
Competency challenges
Effective leaders understand that more than just being able to motivate and inspire, successful leadership also involves a capacity for competency in several different areas.
Making hard decisions, managing resources wisely, delegating tasks to appropriate teammates, and seeking effective feedback are all essential facets of leading well. These competency challenges test leaders on their ability to make thoughtful and sensitive choices that promote the growth of their teams and help them fulfill their goals.
Some of these decisions may involve tough calls from a moral or fiscal perspective; however, new leaders can learn how to evaluate every situation thoughtfully to ensure the best outcome possible.
Other times, new leaders may feel challenged in lacking knowledge in subject matters. Remind yourself that you have a team of subject matter experts to work with on your team. In addition, make a careful assessment of the skills required at your level and create a plan to close identified gaps with the help of training, mentoring, coaching, and direct feedback from your leadership.
Communication challenges
Leadership is a complex topic and it involves more than one element to be successful. Communication ranks high among these, as it is a critical factor in both getting people on board and making sure that everyone remains engaged throughout the process.
Neglecting communication can result in all kinds of missteps, from the team members not having the same objectives or resources to accomplish those goals to unclear expectations from the start leading to costly corrections, unmet expectations, and rework. As a leader then, communicating effectively is key.
Keeping everyone informed and on the same page requires frequent clear and comprehensive explanations of what is expected of each involved party. Transparency and honesty are paramount, while transparency also implies an ability to recognize and celebrate successes along the way. When worker morale increases, productivity usually follows suit, decreasing costly mistakes in the long run.
Internal challenges
Despite the appealing external aspects of leadership such as garnering respect and authority, there are some underlying internal challenges that many leaders grapple with. One of these is the temptation to stay positive in the face of difficulty, even through setbacks.
Another challenge is wanting to be liked. A leader may find it difficult to forgo recognition for their accomplishments in favor of what will truly benefit the team and its long-term goals. On top of this, a lack of sufficient training can make staying calm during difficult conversations and more challenging scenarios a challenge.
Finally, if you aspire to grow in leadership, you will need to learn how to trust people often within unfamiliar circumstances. You will need to establish trust when you don’t have personal knowledge or when prior firsthand experience requires patience, vigilance, and care.
7 Quick Tips To Solve These Leadership Challenges
Get Clear On Your Role
Understanding how to effectively manage and lead a team is not an easy task. One of the most important tips for solving common leadership challenges is to get crystal clear on the role you must play as a leader, mentor, and coach. Knowing what your responsibilities are within each role can help avoid confusion and questions of where the boundaries lie between ‘leading’, ‘coaching’, ‘mentoring’, and ‘managing’.
This clarity in roles will also help set objectives more concisely and streamline communication between you, your team members, other staff, and stakeholders. Establishing clear duties and expectations right away sets the stage for a successful working relationship with all parties involved.
Use Feedback To Your Advantage
Effective leaders are able to master the art of taking feedback in order to better themselves and their teams. Leaders should use input from team members and stakeholders as a tool for growth rather than allowing it to be viewed as negative criticism.
Team members can provide valuable insight into areas the leader may have been blind to previously and this can help them make informed decisions that support the growth of their business. 360 reports are great tools to elicit feedback from peers, and leaders, as well as direct reports, to get a well-rounded view. This allows you as a leader to understand your mirror image – reflected by how others see you – and decide which items may need adjustment.
Instead of using this feedback defensively, use it instead to respond constructively by determining what you would want to change to benefit your team as well as your career. This may seem challenging, but processing through received feedback increases your self-awareness and can enable your growth as a leader.
Set Clear Expectations
Setting simple, yet specific goals and responsibilities can help ensure that tasks are completed efficiently and without confusion. Clearly spelling out what success looks like upfront can help motivate teams to make progress toward desired outcomes.
When leaders set their expectations early on and provide open communication channels along the way, their teams can better navigate complex tasks, resulting in improved overall productivity.
Earn Trust and Strengthen Relationships
Many of the challenges that come with being a leader stem from a deficiency in trust and relationships. It can be difficult to lead with the respect and fidelity of your team if those bonds haven’t been built.
To strengthen relationships with your team, prioritize time to learn and understand each other’s perspectives. Make sure you are taking feedback and implementing helpful advice given by members of your group; this will demonstrate that you take their insights seriously.
Creating an open forum for dialogue will help build mutual trust. Earned trust is essential for effective leadership. While these tips may seem simple, they have the power to define your success as a leader in any organization.
Come Up With A Growth Principle For The Year
One way to tackle these issues is to create a Growth Principle for the year. This can be an inspirational quote that helps motivate and remind you that success is achievable, no matter how difficult the challenge may seem.
You can also use it as a rallying cry during team meetings, urging everyone to rally around making things happen and achieving common goals. Having this principle or motto will help ensure that you stay focused and energized throughout the year.
Recommit to Core Values
No matter the challenge, leaders need to stay true to the values which define them and their organization. Your values will guide decisions in difficult times, offering clarity if ever you find yourself feeling overwhelmed or uncertain. Having clarity on your core values will also speed up decision-making for you when you’re under pressure.
Take some time every day to reflect on your core values, and remind yourself why they are important. Not only will this encourage you to make decisions from an empowered place, but it will ensure your lasting leadership success.
Reward and Recognize Effort
The small act of expressing appreciation can do wonders for a person’s morale and motivation. Leaders should create a system where employees are rewarded for their hard work, not just for reaching specific goals. This could take the form of bonuses, commissions, or even simple words of genuine praise. Acknowledging and supporting good ideas, recognizing achievements both big and small, and reinforcing desired behaviors are also effective strategies that any leader can use to great effect.
How These Leadership Challenges Benefit You
Leadership challenges are invaluable when it comes to honing your skills in problem-solving, decision-making, and communication. Taking on these challenges encourages creative thinking, giving you the opportunity to work collaboratively and try out new ideas.
Furthermore, by achieving great feats that you otherwise believed to be impossible, you gain greater self-confidence and security which helps you face future obstacles with poise and determination.
Finally, leadership challenges don’t just prepare leaders for the workplace but also inspire personal growth and professional development as you recognize your hidden strengths and use each opportunity to become a better version of yourself.
The Bottom Line
New leaders have a lot on their plates. They are tasked with the difficult job of transitioning into a new role while still being effective in their position of leading others. The challenges that come along with this can feel overwhelming, but they can be overcome with intentionality, coaching, and consistent development and practice.
With the right mindset and support system, any new leader can successfully navigate these waters. By utilizing the strategies outlined here intentionally and consistently, you can master the challenges of your new role and become a successful and respected leader.
What will you do next?
(LC028)
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