Create Inevitable Progress: Direction for developing in managerial roles.

• Author: Walch, Brian
• Date: 01 March 2024

Your role as a manager is dynamic and complex. You deliver business results, improve processes, and keep everyone productive. You're also expected to recruit the right people, train them, keep them engaged, and prepare them for the next step in their careers.

We have substantial opportunities here in Alaska, which is encouraging, but we risk not having enough people to capitalize on them. We need great managers, and it is essential work, but it's a lot! Many managers want to succeed and grow in their roles but aren't sure how to do that.

Maybe that's you.

Your role is unique, and you can't count on others to give you the proper training, support, or mentoring to succeed. That doesn't need to slow your progress or growth.

You can use the following process to create clarity and direction for your role. As you progress and master becoming a manager, you'll be able to use this process to help your employees create self-directed plans for development.

If you make the implied explicit, the hidden visible, and the elusive achievable, progress is inevitable. You experience success, your employees progress, the organization grows, and Alaska continues to thrive.

Understand Where You Are

Development within a role isn't linear nor easily measured by clear milestones. It is a continuum and happens unevenly and incrementally. Progress Is often unrecognized or unacknowledged, but It doesn't have to be. You can be a successful manager If you understand what is required and gain the necessary abilities.

I've defined three stages I call the 3 Ps of Progression. You can use these to understand how far you've developed within your role and create reasonable expectations for yourself and others.

The 3 Ps of Progression are Practice, Perform, and Pioneer.

The Practice stage is when...