Are you in a new role? Managing a team for the first time? Don’t just learn your job. Learn the system.
One mistake new leaders often make is focusing too narrowly on their work. If you keep your head down and stay in your lane, you’ll be rewarded. Right? Not quite. To lead means to see the bigger picture. What happens in the rest of the organisation affects you. Plus, you’re expected to have an impact beyond your team.
What’s my tip for learning the system?
Keep the Star Model in mind. Organisational theorist Jay Galbraith created this framework to design organisations. You can use it to understand your company.
The Star Model describes an organisation in five categories:
- Strategy: What is your organisation’s direction? What sets it apart?
- Structure: What is the hierarchy? Who has authority and power?
- Processes: How is information shared? How are decisions made?
- Rewards: What gets measured? What gets rewarded?
- People: How is talent developed? How are people managed?
Every part is connected. Understand the strategy, and you know what skills your team needs. Know who has authority, and you can get your big change approved. See other teams with the same problem you solved, and you can amplify your impact by sharing solutions.
Whether you succeed as a leader it’s just about you. It’s about who you know, what you know, and how you apply it. Don’t just learn the job—learn the system.