Leading in Your Twenties – Prepare Yourself – School Didn’t Do It
If you are in your twenties, I have news for you. You did not get what you needed in high school and college if you are planning to be a leader. On top of that, most companies will not invest in developing you as a leader until you are already in a leadership position.
What’s that tell you? It’s up to you to get ready to lead!
This is the third in a series of blogs written directly to the Twenty-Somethings. This is about you and your future. This series is the beginning of a quest.
It is my quest is to help get you ready to lead today, tomorrow, and for decades to come. I will post a new blog weekly. Right now I have a series of 10 blogs planned.
As you read these blogs, please share them with other people who want ideas on how to lead now and how to develop the Twenty-Something Leaders of our future.
Lack of Preparation in School
How many people had a mandatory class on leadership in high school or college? I see very few hands raised.
If you were a business major you might have had a course called “Organizational Leadership”. Those courses cover a lot of great leadership theories. But theoretical leadership covered in one semester does not make you a leader.
You probably learned more important lessons about frontline leadership trying to get classmates to fulfill their commitments in group projects or getting them to even show up at meetings!
If you believe getting an MBA will prepare you to be a leader, you will be sorely disappointed. MBA’s will teach you a lot about financial and resource management. You will also get a lot out of the marketing and probability and statistics. But, none of that prepares you to lead people.
Hint: They are called a Masters in Business Administration not a Masters in Business Leadership.
Lack of Preparation in Business
School laid the foundation. Now the company must train you in the skills and competencies to excel in your chosen industry. That is 100% legitimate and understandable.
Before you get promoted, you must master the job you are currently being paid to do. The problem is once you do that, you have to compete for a promotion to leadership. Are you ready?
Most people are not ready for their first leadership role in business. In fact, most people are promoted to leadership first and trained to lead later. Sometimes that training comes months or years after that person has entered that role and made multiple mistakes.
What Needs to Be Your Focus?
After 20 plus years mentoring and training leaders as a corporate world insider and now as an outside consultant, I believe the biggest issues leaders must conquer are:
- Character Issues
- The Courage to speak out and act when necessary.
- The Humility to accept feedback, listen, and grow.
- The Integrity to do the right thing even if it could cost them personally.
- The Selflessness to put the needs of others first.
- The sense of Duty to do what needs to be done even if it is uncomfortable to do.
- The Positivity to maintain a positive attitude in all circumstances.
Think about it. If the phrases above described your current leader, you’d be pretty happy working for that person wouldn’t you?
Now imagine if that’s how the first team you get to lead describes you!
How To Prepare Yourself to Lead
If you are in your twenties and want to lead now or in the future, don’t wait for someone else to step forward and offer to train you or mentor you. If you are serious and you want to be a leader sooner rather than later – prepare yourself.
Invest in Yourself: If you want to understand how to grow in the leader you want to be, invest your time, your effort, and yes, your cash. Read books or listen to podcasts on leadership. Pay your own way to a leadership seminar that is in your area. Always be looking for ways to grow and learn about developing your character and leading others.
Find a Mentor: Don’t wait for someone else to assign you a mentor. Look for someone whom you admire. This is a leader who epitomizes what you like in a leader, or who lives by the character statements above. Then ask someone to coach you and help you become a better leader. Meet with them regularly and ask them to challenge you.
Practice, Practice, Practice: As we discussed in Topic 2 of this series, Don’t Wait to Be Told to Lead, you must go out and lead where you are. Take ownership of projects and lead. Find a new hire to mentor and lead. Volunteer somewhere and lead. The more practice you get leading, the better prepared you will be to lead when you have the title of leader.
The Bottom Line:
Your growth and your preparation for leadership is nobody’s responsibility but your own. You have to realize your growth is up to you!
I am going to do everything I can to provide you with insights through this blog series and other resources I am developing. Our next blog will lay the foundation for the rest of the series.
Please help me and post any questions or challenges you have as a twenty something who is leading now or wants to lead in the future. I will do my best to incorporate whatever you ask in the future or answer your questions right here.
The opportunities are there for the motivated few who not only want to have the title of leader, but also want to lead well. The question is will you be ready?
Question:
What leadership challenges do people in their twenties face?
Dave Anderson is coauthor of the Amazon Best-Seller Becoming a Leader of Character – Six Habits that Make or Break a Leader at Work and at Home with his father General James L. Anderson (USA Retired).
You can order Becoming a Leader of Character on Amazon by clicking here:
You can also find Becoming a Leader of Character at Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million and other retailers.
I think a challenge twenty-somethings face when leading is we don’t know what we don’t know. We also have limited previous experience to draw similar conclusions or expand our perspective. These present challenges when leading in an unfamiliar situation.
Thanks for writing about this topic!
Taylor,
Thank you! I appreciate your comments. Please share this blog with other 20 somethings so I can get a lot of perspectives that will guide my future posts and future resources (books, videos, online courses).
I do want to encourage you though. Do not let your youth prevent you from stepping forward to lead. The only way to get the experience you lack is to take action – even if it makes you uncomfortable. Find a mentor whom you can call upon when you get in those uncomfortable situations in leadership.
PS. Or email me and I will try to answer your questions.
Dave,
This is so relevant for where I am at in my career. I hope to move into a leadership role in the next year or two. As I read this out loud to my husband, we both agreed that in our current roles, the bigger companies seem to be investing more in training individuals in leadership. My company has not, while Joe’s has.
Through working with a lot of Twenty Somethings, I definitely think stressing the Integrity aspect is really important. It’s not uncommon to see someone not make the right, ethical/moral choice for their customer to benefit for themselves. Teaching the ‘millenials’ to think before speaking and giving a well though out answer when asked for an idea is also important. Not speaking just to speak, but speaking to add value.
Also, I have seen the benefit of engrossing yourself in organizations during college is extremely beneficial for learning leadership skills/challenges early on. (Sororities, fraternities, sports, etc.).
I look forward to reading more on this topic!!
-Carly
Carly,
Thanks for your insights!
The larger the company, the more likely it is that they will have a formalized training department and a structure to how they train you. But no matter what, it still rides on the individual to take responsibilty for their own growth and to put themselves in positions to lead even if they do not have the title – YET!
What type of situation have you seen where 20 somethings have compromised their Integrity in order to get ahead. I do not want names, but enough context to think through case study examples.
Your the best!