Succeed in your role as a new leader.
By Pernille Yde Planck, January 2021. Updated December 2023.
Your leadership space is the framework for your leadership. If you are to succeed in your new role as a leader, it is naturally important that you know it.
When you start as a new leader, you should familiarize yourself with your leadership space as soon as possible. Your leadership space consists of the leadership basis, your task, the resources available to you, and the employment law frameworks within which you must operate. In this article you will learn what is included in the various elements so that you can identify your leadership space.
The leadership basis is, as mentioned, a part of your leadership space and covers your organization’s overarching goals/purpose/vision, strategies, leadership values, and business order.
When you want to understand your leadership basis, you can start by looking at your organization’s overall goals, purpose, or vision. In other words: What is it that you really work for, and what must you achieve for your organization to be considered a success?
Your organization’s leadership values are also a part of your leadership basis, so you must know them. The leadership values can vary greatly from one organization to another and may, for example, emphasize trustworthy or transparent leadership.
It is important that you internalize these values and make them your own, because it is based on them that you are expected to act as a leader. If you cannot embrace the organization’s leadership values, you should reconsider whether the leadership role in that organization is right for you.
Most organizations have also formulated a business order. It might be called something else in your organization, but take the time to understand what it is and what it means for your organization. A business order may, for example, contain provisions or agreements on how meetings are conducted—that is, on meeting duration, preparation, decision-making criteria, and so on. By familiarizing yourself with the business order, many questions will be answered and you will be helped to get things right from the start.
In the first year after you are appointed as a leader, it is a good idea to meet with your boss regularly so that you have the opportunity to continuously align expectations. This can involve both alignment on the task level and alignment regarding your employees. The meetings can also be used to share knowledge, and your boss can provide input on how you should act as a leader and how you are meeting his or her expectations.
In this context, it is of course important that you focus on what your task as a leader is. You knew what your task was as an employee, but now the task is different. You will likely still have some operational duties, but your overall task is to be a leader. So it is important that you know which task you must ensure your department succeeds with. When are you and your department considered successful?
It is also essential that you familiarize yourself with what business responsibility and mandate come with the role. One thing is that you have been formally appointed as a leader. But what additional responsibility comes with it, and what mandate do you have? How far can you go? Can you hire and fire, or does that task lie elsewhere? Can you enter into agreements with external partners, or must these go through your boss?
You need to determine where the dividing lines are drawn. Using a sports metaphor, you might say that you need to figure out where the boundaries lie.
It is, of course, also important that you consider your department’s role within the organization. How do you contribute with tasks in the overall strategy? How do you support the company’s goals and strategic challenges?
When you look at it, you will also quickly consider what resources—in the broadest sense—you have at your disposal. Resources naturally include the employees you manage, but also IT and other types of equipment you need for your leadership work. Finance is also a resource. Under finance, there might be sales targets you need to meet or be accountable for. Alternatively, you might only have expenses—that is, you have a budget that is on the expense side.
Finally, there are the employment law frameworks that you as a new leader should also know. First and foremost, there are the national legislative rules that apply to all employees in Denmark. You must, of course, be familiar with them.
It may sound intense, but there are 12 good legal tips that you should know. You are not required to know every detail, but you must have a general understanding of what you need to be aware of as a leader so that you know how to act. This includes matters such as working hours, vacation, sick leave, and personal data.
If your company is a member of CfL, you can call our HR legal hotline at any time to ask questions about this overall legal framework for your leadership.
It may also be that your organization is covered by collective agreements. These can be agreements that apply to the entire sector or industry, or they can be locally agreed collective agreements. You need to know which collective agreements you are covered by. You do not need to know them in detail, but you should at least know where you can get help. You also need to know whether the collective agreements mean that there are any special conditions that apply, for example in relation to sick leave or other matters that mean your organization has stricter rules than those that apply nationwide.
Finally, there may be some internal personnel policies that further restrict your leadership space in terms of what you can and cannot do in relation to your employees. You should, of course, familiarize yourself with these internal personnel policies so that you are completely clear about the employment law framework you must operate within, and know where to go to get more knowledge if you are in doubt.
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