Transition to Leadership

“I don’t look at myself as a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball.” - Mike Krzyzewski

This is my favorite leadership quote. Not just because it's from one of the greatest coaches of all time, but because it summarizes so beautifully the idea that being a leader is a skill unto itself. It is also transferable. You are not a leader in only one environment. If you are a leader, you can lead anywhere.

I often use the player-to-coach analogy with professionals I mentor to illustrate this idea. Unfortunately, many people are promoted primarily because their playing ability - 'hard skills.' This reinforces the idea that their success is a function of what they know. This can spiral into a leadership team that values…you guessed it…hard skills. This is not to suggest hard skills aren't important. The gap is created when they are prioritized over everything else. Like 'soft skills.'

In my webinar with @nancydome, I mentioned that I recently had a leader admit they got burned by over-valuing technical leadership. They learned that those skills don't always transfer to leading people. He mentioned he didn't value the skill of being good with people. Those folks were in places like Sales or HR.

But what if we revisited the idea that "being good with people" meant you should be in a position to have the greatest degree of influence on, oh I don't know…people. This is a lesson we continue to re-learn. In 1995, Daniel Goleman's book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, he built the case for why soft skills (self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management) are the great differentiator to leadership. Nearly 30 years later, we're still learning the lesson.

So, I'm permanently taking a stand against the phrase 'soft skills.'

How about we all just agree to call it leadership.