This is part of a series of posts about the Leadership Lattice, a framework for learning about the different dimensions of management and leadership.

Leadership roles have a massive surface area of accountability, and the process of learning as you go can be challenging. As part of Leadership Wednesdays, I’ll be detailing the framework that I use to make the learning easier to manage (and quicker). To get a better understanding of this framework, check out these posts.

The first domain of responsibility is that of Individuals, which I’ve found to be the most important domain because all management is exercised through people.

• The guiding mental model I use is “the employee journey. This domain is all about managing individuals through their personal career journey and the time that is spent within your organization. The employee journey has provided me a good encapsulation of that responsibility. The employee journey also highlights where there are missing links - parts of the job that can be simply overlooked. The responsibility scope starts before an individual is brought on board - how that process actually begins, carries them through their career journey in the organization, and ends with managing their departure if necessary. The relationship can continue beyond that time frame but then falls out of scope of the framework.

• Going through the employee journey, the following is list of some of those practices:

  • The Hiring Decision
  • Sourcing and Interviewing
  • Hiring and Onboarding
  • Creating paths for growth, development and training
  • Understanding individual motivations
  • Understanding strengths and weaknesses
  • Unlocking individual potential
  • Creating clarity in individual objectives and goals
  • Managing individual output and performance
  • Providing guidance and feedback
  • Placement within the organization: promotions and demotions
  • Managing their exit, if necessary (firing, quitting, etc)

• There are hundreds, if not thousands of frameworks to help with the above practices. These come from books, blog posts, and other places. These are the tangibles that help make the practices of leadership easier. These are like tools in a toolbelt. An incomplete list below:

  • Growth and Development: Training plans, Skills matrix
  • Understanding Strengths and Weaknesses: MBTI, Enneagram
  • Understanding Motivations: Daniel Pink AMP Framework
  • Goals and Output: OKRs, SMART Goals,
  • Guidance and Feedback: 1:1s, Direct Feedback methods, Radical Candor