How to Make the Transition From Team Player to Team Leader

At AcceleRISE 2024, Sandra Williams, vice president of operations at Boon Edam, shared insights on how to transition to leadership successfully.

The Security Industry Association (SIA) recently closed out a successful sixth annual AcceleRISE – a unique event presented by the SIA RISE community and gathering tomorrow’s security leaders. The sold-out event took place Aug. 12-14, 2024, in Washington, D.C., and offered attendees meaningful opportunities to connect, take their careers to the next level, explore the nation’s capital and have fun.

AcceleRISE 2024 – a three-day program featuring industry-leading subject matter experts and emerging security leaders – offered inspiring talks and panel discussions, interactive workshops and lively activities on a variety of topics in leadership, career development, technology, fostering the future of the security industry and more. One highlight was a session on transitioning to a leadership role from Sandra Williams, vice president of operations at Boon Edam.

Find Your Leadership Style

Attendees first learned about the 11 types of leadership:

• Transformational leadership focuses on inspiring and motivating followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes. Transformational leaders set a compelling vision for the future and encourage their team to pursue it passionately. They foster a culture of innovation and growth, challenging the status quo.
• Delegative leadership involves leaders granting significant autonomy to their team members. These leaders trust their teams’ expertise and decision-making abilities and provide guidance only when necessary. While this style can empower capable individuals, it may falter when team members lack self-motivation or direction.
• Transactional leadership is a focus on clear structures and well-defined roles. This style establishes specific expectations, rewards and consequences for team members. Transactional leaders rely on a system of incentives to motivate performance.
• Democratic leadership emphasizes collaboration and consensus building. These leaders see input from team members, valuing their opinions in decision making. This approach helps to foster a sense of ownership and engagement among team members.
• Servant leadership flips the traditional leadership model with leaders prioritizing the needs of their team members over their own. They aim to serve and support their teams’ growth, enabling them to reach their full potential.
• Authoritative leadership isabout setting a compelling vision and providing clear direction. Leaders inspire confidence by guiding their team toward a shared goal.
• Situational leadership is a flexible approach that involves adapting leadership styles to match the specific needs of a situation or individual team members.
• Strategic leadership focuses on creating and executing a long-term vision for an organization. Strategic leaders are adept at setting strategic goals, analyzing market trends and aligning their teams’ efforts with the organization’s mission.
• Coaching leadership involves actively mentoring and developing team members to reach their full potential. These leaders provide constructive feedback, support skill development and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
• Bureaucratic leadership relies on strict adherence to rules and policies and procedures. The leaders in bureaucratic organizations prioritize stability and predictability. A lot of these types can be found in safety or regulatory compliance.
• Visionary leadership is very similar to authoritative leadership. Visionary leaders center on inspiring and motivating through a compelling vision for the future and articulate and rally their teams behind a shared goal, often in innovative or forward-thinking industries.

Check Your Ego

Williams highlighted the importance of humility as a leader.

“What is needed from you in leadership is much different from what made you an exceptional team player,” said Williams, who emphasized that becoming a team leader means you need to think more of the team and less about yourself.

“Leadership comes with authority, but it cannot be approached as [a role] of authority – it needs to be approached as a position of great responsibility,” said Williams. “Leadership comes with considerable influence. Pay careful attention to your tone and wording. Gaining trust and respect takes time and considerable effort – losing it can be instantaneous and unintended.”

Empower Your People

“Any company’s’ greatest and only lasting competitive advantage is its people,” said Williams. “Treat them as such in your new leadership role – you now build people.”

Williams said that world-class organizations are ones in which “each and every person does their job better than people in other companies,” emphasizing that leaders need to empower their team members to be well versed in their jobs, versatile and vitally engaged.

“Focus on building world-class people, and you will build a world-class team and company,” she said.

Look in the Mirror

“An organization is a reflection of its leadership,” said Williams. “We all have blind spots – extraordinary leaders are aware of this and actively look to find and reduce them.”

Williams encouraged new leaders to notice what they do not like about their team, division, company or department and reflect on what they are doing that is allowing or creating that situation.

“Looking outward only makes you feel more comfortable – pointing fingers will never fix the underlying root causes of any situation,” said Williams.

Be Patient

“People will not develop as [quickly] as you would like them to,” said Williams, who encouraged leaders to be patient and focus on making and seeing progress toward the future state they want their teams to reach rather than getting to that future state at a certain fast pace.

“If there is positive movement toward your goal, then things are going well,” said Williams. “You all will get there!”

Don’t Freak Out

“Everyone is watching you” when you’re a leader, said Williams, who encouraged attendees to show maturity and not lose their cool or show their low point of emotions in front of their teams.

Williams stressed the importance of finding a good outlet or trusted safe space to whom you can vent and take time to process.

“In front of the team you must show confidence in the direction and positivity to fuel energy and momentum toward the set goals,” she said, especially when things are going well, as that is when people are looking at leaders the most closely.

“Pressure does not create character – it reveals it,” said Williams.

Develop a Consultant’s Eye

Williams encouraged leaders to look at their teams and organizations with a consultant’s eye. Consultants have a unique perspective into companies because they “are not held back by the day-to-day activities of the company” and “can watch from a side view on how a company operates,” she said.

Leaders can act like consultants with their teams, watching how their people interact within their teams, how their teams interact with other teams across the organization and the culture and satisfaction of the people.

“If you pay attention to those things, you will gain great insights and perspectives and see so much opportunity for improvement,” Williams said.

Never Stop Learning

Finally, Williams encouraged leaders to never stop learning about leadership. “Be relentless in your own drive for development,” she said.

Too often, said Williams, companies place employees into their new leadership roles and say “good luck” without properly training them in leadership beforehand. Williams recommended that new leaders seek out basic training to help them be successful – reading books on leadership, talking to other leaders, finding professional development programs, reading articles, watching webinars and more.

“Take in a lot, weigh and consider it all and then use it to build your leadership foundation,” she said.

SIA RISE is a community that fosters the careers of emerging leaders in the security industry. In addition to the SIA RISE Scholarship, SIA RISE offers fun in-person and virtual networking events for young professionals, the Talent Inclusion Mentorship Education (TIME) program for early and mid-career professionals, the 25 on the RISE Awards, career growth webinars and trade show education tracks and the annual AcceleRISE conference – a unique event designed to ignite new thinking, strengthen leadership and sharpen business acumen in young security talent. The SIA RISE community is open to all employees at SIA member companies who are young professionals under 40 or have been in the security industry for less than two years; learn more and sign up to join. 

See photos from AcceleRISE here. Plans are underway for next year’s AcceleRISE conference. To learn more and stay up to date, visit https://accelerise.securityindustry.org/.