JTBD your managment skills. Or, why do you want to improve anyway?
Because the status quo is, well, the status quo.
Many of my posts simply assume that you want to change something. About yourself, about how you interact with your team, about your company.
And that’s clearly an assumption. Maybe (probably?) you are totally fine with the status quo.
Or maybe not “fine”. Just not uninspiring or painful enough.
Inertia and reasonable comfort are the biggest detractors to change.
And yes, “reasonable” can absolutely mean “better the devil you know”.
So, why do you want to level up your leadership skill?
Like seriously!
What do you get out of it?
How does it make your life better (or less miserable)?
Your motivation makes all the difference. It allows you to prioritize the areas you want to work on (or not), and it can help you to create a narrative you can share with your team and your own manager.
Because your real motivation might not be fit for public consumption.
And that’s exactly why it takes a bit of inprospection to actually figure out why you want to improve your leadership skills.
Basically, you need to conduct a JTBD (Jobs-To-Be-Done) interview with yourself - or ask a skilled coach to do it with you.
Unsexy (and valid!) reasons why you may want to level up
Remember the last time you signed up to any type of course, program, productivity hack - anything that you officially sold to yourself as something that would make you a better employee / manager / team member.
There’s theree journaling questions you can start with:
What prompted the decision (the switch event)?
Why didn’t you stay with the previous solution / situation?
And what made you decide for exactly the thing you chose?
And yes, sometimes the reasons look like this:
My best friend told me that they got promoted and now make a lot more money than I do. In my current job I wont’ be able to progress because my boss is too young to retire anytime soon, so I need to find something else. And this course/program/product looked like I could do it in my free time as not to spook that boss.
Without digging deeper into the competition you have going with your friend, let’s reframe this situation for public consumption:
You’ve decided to invest into your career, especially into cross-area expertise so you can add more value to the company ecosystem.
Now, that’s something you can write into the email to your boss as you request a reimbursement. And knowing that IN REALITY you are trying to prove a point to your best friend - it helps you prioritize what to focus on.
So, as promised, here are some other reasons why people decide to invest into furthering their leadership skills:
“I don’t quite know what the hell I am doing now that we are remote, so I hope this course can help me to get some more structure into my week.”
“I am bored.”
“I want to prove a point to [insert person].”
“I am scared that my team won’t need me anymore.”
“I really like the creator.”
“Everyone says I should do something.”
None of these reasons is invalid. We don’t choose our motivation, after all. At least not officially. And yes, you can reframe all of those and many more into a proper business reason that will resonate with yourself (!) and your manager.
So - why do you want to improve?