My mother used to say, Its just a stage youre going through, to explain what was happening in my life. Her observation holds for leaders, too.

Leaders go through stages that affect and shape how they lead. Here are just a few of the more common transitions from one stage to another that Ive observed.

From friend to supervisor.

Jeremy and Carlos joined the firm at the same time, worked in the same department, and socialized frequently together, having graduated from the same college and sharing a common interest in sports and exercise.

Then, Carlos was promoted and became Jeremys supervisor. Therein lay the dilemma. How was Carlos to maintain his friendship with Jeremy and still provide him with candid feedback on performance, deny requests for days off, or rate him frankly on his annual review?

The choice in this stage is between respect and friendship. For those who manage the stage well, earning respect as a supervisor often means deciding not to be as close a friend as before becoming a supervisor.

From technician to manager.

Jasmine had always wanted to be an engineer. After a few years in an international construction firm, however, she was asked to become a team leader and from there she advanced quickly to project manager.

While her work required knowledge of engineering, she no longer did any actual engineering work. She spent her days thinking about and managing people, processes, costs, quality, budgets, and customers.

For her, the transition from one stage to another became complete when she stopped subscribing to the Journal of Mechanical Engineering and, instead, subscribed to the Harvard Business Review.

From tactical to strategic and systemic thinker.

As Jonathan moved up in the business, the nature of the challenges he faced changed. He became increasingly concerned with complex, strategic, and systemic problems and less involved in tactical ones.

Earlier, he worried about how to improve the quality of the products his department made, the speed with which they made them, and how to recruit and train the people he needed on his team  all of which were fairly straightforward challenges within his control.

Now, though, the problems he deals with are far more complex. How can we overcome the inherent conflicts between manufacturing and sales? How do we transform the firms culture to respond and adapt to the changes and challenges in the marketplace? How do we establish a common set of procedures and disciplines in the company when were in six countries and have acquired three new firms in the last year?

As Jonathan struggles to deal with the complexity and ambiguity in his job, he no longer has the sense of completion and accomplishment he had earlier in his career.

From personal achievement to concern for others success.

Now that Im a bit older, Im less concerned about my own achievement and far more concerned about the success of others. I see the same shift in many leaders who realize that their interest, attention, and effort is increasingly focused on how to help younger leaders grow and develop.

Rather than having to take charge and assert ones authority, they are more willing to let others lead. Rather than pushing events ahead quickly, they allow natural processes to unfold at their own speed. Rather than focusing exclusively on the numbers in the business (forecasts, budgets, ROI, retention), they also measure their progress in how many subordinates have advanced.

All leaders go through various stages in their careers. The four examples above are merely a quick sample of some of them. What stage are you in now? What does that mean you need to be learning, adapting to, letting go of, or having to do differently?

Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University, in a NY Times interview said that employees imagine that they (leaders) have all kinds of designs or purposes that they may or may not have. So communication seemed to me something very important from early on, so that people not have that sense of mystery about what a leader is up to.

Leaders consistently under-communicate  they fail to explain, educate, and communicate what they are doing and why they are doing it. The result is mystery, which leads to the staff making ill-informed guesses and erroneous assumptions as to the leaders intent.

What actions have you taken recently that, because you didnt communicate fully and repeatedly, may have led to a sense of mystery that the staff may misinterpret? What steps can you take today to address this lack of communication?

Michail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK 47 Assault Rifle, said, "Things that are complex are not useful. Things that are useful are simple."

One of the biggest complaints I hear from staff are about leaders whose explanations are overly detailed, convoluted, and confusing. The best leaders make things easy to understand so they are useful to their staff.

What can you do today to make your messages more useful by making them simpler?

Email archie@archietinelli.com