CAREER TRANSITION AND THE LEADERSHIP PIPELINE OF RAM CHARAN

This study aims to understand the challenges inherent to professionals who make the transition from career to leadership when exercising it for the first time, based on Ram Charan's leadership pipeline. The aim is to discuss the issues involving the change of professional role in the first pass of the pipeline, when the individual changes from being a leader of himself to being a leader of others, in relation to the difficulties encountered by the professionals, the necessary skills and the development actions. The method used is a bibliographical research based on Charan, Drotter and Noel's leadership pipeline theories and Ibarra's career transition theories and a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive research, which aims to identify the challenges in leadership practice found, discussing the results against the studied theories. The reflections result in the importance of adequately preparing leaders to assume the first leadership position, considering the development of skills, perception of new values and adjustments in time management.


INTRODUCTION
The central focus of this article is to discuss the challenges faced by professionals when taking on a management position for the first time. Not only in relation to technical management skills but, mainly, behavioral skills, which make a leader manager capable of inspiring and engaging the team around a common purpose.
According to studies by Ivan and Terra (2017), which sought to identify how the leader affects organizational dynamics, in an increasingly demanding market, points such as procedures, motivation, influence, meetings, decision making, results, experiences, new system, adaptation, organizational culture, acceptance and organizational development and training are the main elements in the performance of a leader. These points demonstrate that the leader has high significance within the company. These authors concluded that the leader is a crucial factor in the implementation of the company's strategies and continuous improvement.
There is a fine difference to be considered between the role of manager and that of leader. While the first is related to technical attributes of the function, such as planning and execution, the second is associated with the influence exerted on subordinates, the meanings attributed and the identification created with the figure of the leader (Brant & Dutra, 2020).
The issue is related to supply and demand in the area of management, as there is currently a shortage of high-performance leaders. By not finding good managers within the company, a fact caused by the lack of investments in programs to identify and develop potential leaders, as well as prepare them for career transitions in leadership, companies recruit externally, believing they will find the perfect manager. Attractive compensation and benefits packages are offered, in the hope that they will find the perfect leader (Charan, Drotter and Noel, 2018). However, many end up hiring professionals out of line with the organizational culture and unprepared to deal with teams. Priority is given to performance, the results achieved and issues of humanization at work are postponed.
In this study, the focus is on the first passage of Ram Charan's leadership pipeline, when the professional changes from being a leader of himself to being a leader of others, leaving operational activities to assume the management of his team. This is the passage considered decisive, as it is one of the most difficult to adapt. The change in the professional role configures a career transition, requiring a profound change in values.
The objective of this paper is to discuss the main difficulties of leaders in leaving the old technical/operational functions, when assuming a leadership position for the first time. Career transition, by itself, already presents some pains in relation to changing the professional role. When it comes to leadership, the pressure exerted by the environment, and coming from the professional, is even more intensified. More specifically, discuss the skills required for the leader to effectively assume his role, and also how companies can prepare him for the new role.
This discussion is justified, as the reason for promoting an employee to first instance leader is usually related to technical skills, causing a group of managers unprepared to lead, due to lack of behavioral skills to deal with people. His technical skills, which put him in the position of manager, are not always enough to keep him in the position. There are two main problems generated by the lack of behavioral skills: the leader cannot create a learning environment; and, it does not add value to the organization, as it is imprisoned in operational functions (Lourenzo, 2021).
Behavioral skills are essential for mediating and conducting efficient leadership. The leader, at the same time that he is self-motivated and develops, must think about his team, either motivating or providing conditions for his peers to develop within the leadership building process.
In the development of this article, the importance of being a leader of oneself is discussed, even before assuming a management position in a company, based on self-knowledge and understanding of one's relationship with others, in the exercise of inspiring leadership. In a second step, the leadership pipeline and the characteristics of the first pass are presented, based on the profile required of the leader, in relation to their skills and values, as well as development indications, which can be adopted by companies and by individuals themselves.

TO LEAD, BE A LEADER OF YOURSELF
Many people have in their minds their own conception of the leader's role and the importance of leadership in any situation or need. Rabechini (2011) argues that leadership requires a climate of trust with the team, in order to lead employees to meet the goals naturally, by the simple influence that the leader exerts on his followers, in order to generate results.
One of the foundations of leadership is to establish a relationship of trust and respect for others. When the manager assumes to his team that he has imperfections and vulnerabilities, like any human being, he creates empathy and generates a sense of belonging (Ogawa, 2020). For Sinek (2019) "if we feel safe with our own people, in our tribes or organizations, we can relax and open ourselves to trust and cooperation".
Nobody leads conceptually. Leadership can be developed by anyone, along the way, through exercise and experimentation. Thus, it is possible to think that leadership refers to an action and not an imposition. "Leadership is something that is exercised and not stopped. It is recognized when legitimized by the other" (Sant'anna, 2021). Dutra (2019) addresses the importance of self-knowledge and respect for what we are and what we want. When we meet, we are clear about our purpose and are able to more assertively direct "our actions to achieve our goals and purposes" (Dutra, 2019, p. 99).
For Louis (1980), working within an organization allows individuals to play different roles, generating opportunities for employees to test their potential, develop their skills, interact, take on challenges and deal with self-knowledge, their existence and their personal identity. It is from this connection with himself that the leader transforms his capacity for self-leadership to initiate the leadership of other people.
Practicing self-leadership is knowing where you want to go; it is self-responsibility for building a career; it is taking responsibility for discovering and developing skills in oneself; it is feeling valued; it is about building a legacy and fulfilling business strategies with a focus on results. For Dutra (2019), we learned a lot from our professional journey because, inevitably, they offer us situations in which we need to make choices. And the hardest part is not what we choose, but what we leave behind. In this process, it is essential to balance the rational and the emotional.
When it comes to career transition, balancing the rational and the emotional side, when thinking about a transition, can take the subject out of traps, created by himself, according to pre-established inclinations, which can lead to bad choices (Ibarra, 2009).

TRANSITION FROM CAREER TO LEADERSHIP
The new demands of the globalized market put pressure on companies to grow quickly, at the risk of losing customers and decreasing their results. This entails the transition of leadership to a level with greater complexity, without being properly prepared for change. "One day, they are carrying out first-level management work and, the next, they start to establish alliances and represent the organization on a global scale" (Charan et al. 2018, pp. 18-19).
When making the transition from career to leadership, your routine is no longer defined only by someone and their manager, and starts to include the concern with the tasks of their team, each one with their goals, objectives which, often, they are not aligned with the organization's goals (Lourenzo, 2021).
When a professional from any area, in their career path, leaves their technical/operational functions to assume the management role, they are going through the career transition process, characterized by the change in the nature of their work, in their professional role, encompassing their attributions, activities and responsibilities. Ibarra (2009) states that the career transition entails a change in identity, that is, in how the individual recognizes himself and is recognized by the other. In the case of leadership, "the leader's career progression, at first, seems to be a simple process, however, it is loaded with emotions and challenges characteristic of career transitions" (Pereira & Veloso, 2020, p. 89).
It's important to understand that people are constantly developing; they have the ability to adapt and evolve; therefore, the potentials change. The ability to reinvent oneself throughout one's career is immeasurable (Charan et al. 2018). If, at a given time, an employee did not have the profile for leadership, some time later he/she can already be considered a potential future manager. For Brant and Dutra (2020), companies need to identify future possible leaders through the use of instruments, such as performance assessment and potential assessment.
Personal and professional development, however, must be carried out continuously, in order to start with simpler subjects and, as the individual evolves, it is possible to work on more complex subjects. Likewise in leadership. Moving from an operational role to strategic management without going through less complex steps can be disastrous for the organization. The professional must evolve in stages, according to the level of complexity required.

Leadership Pipeline
Charan et al. (2018) created a structural model of stages for the transition of managers, according to the level of complexity, called the leadership pipeline, which propose a structure for the transition from more operational to more strategic leadership levels, following the natural hierarchy most companies.
Despite targeting several passages, as occurs in large corporations, the pipeline can be adapted for small companies, with less hierarchical levels. At the first management level, leaders are responsible for "simple operations and processes [...], responsible for the added value for the business present". (Dutra & Dutra, 2020, pp.150-151). In Figure 1, it is possible to identify the structure of the passages from one level to another.

Figure 1 Leadership Pipeline
Source: Adapted from Charan, Drotter and Noel, 2018, p. 23 According to the theory of Charan et al. (2018), only the first passage will be explained, as it is the focus of this theoretical essay. Each stage covered carries, with it, elements of the previous stage, as a way of transition to complement and have a memory of what was done in the past to add value to the new stage.
The first step (from managing oneself to managing others) represents employees, who work in technical or operational roles, whether in any sector of the organization, and become team managers. There is a profound change in the professional role in this passage, considered one of the most challenging, as it requires the development of new skills, different from those which the professional was already used to in his old role.
Planning work, filling positions, assigning tasks, motivating, advising and evaluating the work of others [...], reallocating your time to not only complete the work assigned to you, but also help others perform effectively. (Charan et al. 2018, p. 31).
This passage, according to the authors, requires a profound change in values. The individual, when working in partnership with his peers, is on the same level; therefore, it has its tasks; when he rises in position and assumes leadership, he will have to be able to manage not only his new tasks, but also the team and the work of individuals inserted in this new work format.
All passages have their challenges and benefits, in relation to self-development and managerial maturity. Companies need to know how to correctly identify professionals with leadership potential and develop them appropriately, in order to generate the expected results. Therefore, the company must have adequate tools to assess the skills required for the leadership position, so that it does not make mistakes when choosing an individual to assume an area in the organization Using promotion to management as a reward for good performance is a mistake, because in addition to the professional incurring the risk of not being properly trained to manage, there is an excess of other managers and few subordinates (Charan et al. 2018).
For Charan et al. (2018), the three changes needed for career transition in passing one that usually present difficulties by leaders are: • Assignment of tasks: many managers do not receive training regarding which tasks must be performed, by whom and within what timeframe; • Develop subordinates: managers need to listen to their employees and help with the work to be performed; when impasses and doubts are identified; and, • Establishing relationships: this attitude is closely related to personal values. If the novice manager was not in the habit of creating relationships with different audiences, as it is not part of his duties, he will find it difficult to develop this behavioral skill.
In a world that does not stop, facing a scenario of changes and transformations, companies increasingly need to take advantage of the skills of their leaders to: ensure effective management; comply with the strategies; ensure quality and deliver satisfactory results.

Difficulties in the transition from career to leadership
It is very common to observe a flight of new leaders from the activities inherent to management. They prefer to focus their efforts on operational tasks, with which they are familiar, as they are the ones he used to perform before the transition, and fail to exercise leadership itself for fear of appearing incompetent (Charan et al. 2018).
When the manager takes care of technical/operational functions, and moves away from his obligations of his position of command, what Dutra and Dutra (2020) call "levelling from the bottom" occurs. The leader assumes tasks related to the responsibility of his subordinates, generating a lack of clarity on the part of the team regarding the challenges to become a manager. Many subordinates may feel that they are close to the degree of responsibility required by the management role. Consequently, the employee cannot understand why he was not elected to the position.
For Lourenzo (2021), having technical knowledge is important, but insufficient. To be a good leader, it is necessary to develop behavioral skills (soft skills) to deal with leadership challenges; inspire confidence in people; motivate; get the results without being authoritative. Management requires building good relationships, both with the team and with other departments, peers and superiors. Charan et al. (2018) agree, stating that, for each passage in the pipeline, the professional needs to develop a series of skills, which demand time (Charan et al. 2018). Many of them are called behavioral, called soft skills.
Before promoting an employee to a management position, it is important for the company to make sure that he or she will be able to renounce operational or technical tasks to perform the job that is his/her responsibility as a manager (Charan et al. 2018). To carry out a career transition, it is important to act and test in practice whether this new career makes sense, whether there is adherence to your profile (Ibarra, 2009).
According to Schein (1996), it is not possible for a person to say whether or not he likes a certain activity, even before performing it. Ibarra (2009) states that, from practice, it is possible to perceive our true talents, skills and passions, and in this way, the goals are redefined. Self-reflection is a consequence of this process.
For Ibarra (2009), before carrying out a career transition, experimenting is essential. Answer questions such as "What if? "and, identifying how someone would feel doing the activity, brings light to the doubt as to whether the change should or should not be carried out. One of the techniques suggested by the author is to work on side projects, which can be an interesting alternative to test career transitions.
It is important to fit the individual into their new role; for this to occur, tests must be carried out, there must be time for the maturity and autonomy of the individual, in his/her new role, and the competences to be developed in this new position and responsibility, to be put to the test.

Development of soft skills for leadership
According to Lourenzo (2021, p.104) the key competences for the leaders of the future are: [...] continuous learning; talent management; interpersonal relationship; leadership in an era of digital disruption; business strategy; negotiation and conflict mediation; digital innovation; initiative and innovation; emotional intelligence; international and intercultural articulations; formation and development of teams; decision-making ability; critical thinking; globalization; collaboration across networks; feeling of ownership; leadership by influence; adaptability (Lourenzo, 2021, p. 104).
It appears to be an extensive list, but it is not. In today's complex world, with faster and faster changes, being a professional with different skills that can generate results for the organization is essential. It appears that the skills listed are behavioral (soft skills), crucial to deal with the current challenges of leadership and, in turn, more difficult to be developed.
For Charan et al. (2018) the need for leader development in passage one can be summarized in three aspects: • Skills: planning, job definition, people selection, delegation, performance evaluation, coaching, communication, relationships, resource acquisition • Time management: annual planning, time for subordinates, setting priorities, time to communicate with other departments, customers, suppliers, etc.
• Professional values: achieving results through others, success of direct reports, management methods, department success, recognizing yourself as a manager, integrity. Charan et al. (2018) state that the preparation of new leaders must have the direct participation of their managers. For Sant'Anna (2021), the presence of a mentor, in the development of leadership, is crucial, as he will share his experiences, listen to the professional and provide support so that the new leader can build his own style.
In a research carried out by Dutra and Dutra (2020), in companies with corporate education, practices for the development of more traditional leadership were found, centered on management skills, such as: "planning, results control, financial management, people management and development of high performance teams" (Dutra & Dutra, 2020, p. 149). As for the behavioral skills to become a leader, few companies presented a program for its development.
Some actions for developing leaders are suggested by Dutra and Dutra (2020): • Face-to-face meetings: through experiences, the meetings promote a reflection on the desired behavior for leaders to deal with daily situations.
• Distance work: in order to exercise what they learned, leaders use logbooks to record the practices performed in relation to what they developed in the meetings. Through questions, continuous reflection on the skills to be developed is encouraged.

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Coaching: with access to the manager's logbook, the coach identifies the skills to be developed and works to focus on the development of these behavioral skills.
• The exchange of experiences: it is encouraged during face-to-face meetings so that managers can talk about the difficulties and discoveries identified in the logbook exercises.
The resulting lesson from these discussions is the importance of continuous development and the shared responsibility between individual and organization, for the acquisition of new skills, and the adequacy to the demands of the labor market and the functions assumed. In the case of leadership, it is necessary to be clear, for the employee, which skills must be acquired, or improved, so that he can be aware, when planning his career, with a more assertive focus on the skills that need to be worked on. The company's participation in this process is crucial.

METHODOLOGY
This study was developed through a qualitative research, of an exploratory and descriptive nature, aiming to identify and reveal the most difficult factors found in leaders when taking office for the first time, and on how companies have prepared their leadership. A field study was applied to the target audience, through a questionnaire with 27 closed questions, made available electronically on the researchers' social networks, identifying first the sample profile and then the questions related to the study. The answers about the transition from career to leadership used the Likert scale, where a grade of one is equivalent to "totally disagree" and a grade of five to "totally agree".
The qualitative approach was chosen, as it allows the selection of respondents intentionally, within the desired profile of first leadership. In addition, qualitative research is not limited to the treatment of quantifiable data, but allows emphasizing the reasons presented by the sample about what makes the career transition to leadership difficult and about how companies have prepared their leaders. (Creswell, 2010).
The exploratory research aimed to clarify the concepts and provide an overview of the phenomenon studied (Gil, 2019). The descriptive aimed at describing the factors that cause difficulties for the occupants of positions, in cases of career transition to the first leadership. It is pertinent to point out here that the researcher must elaborate the questions that guide the theme, analyze the relationship between its variables, study, analyze, record and interpret the facts, without receiving interference from its actors (Gil, 2019).

PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
The survey reached a sample of 98 respondents; however, only 47 responses were validated, as they referred to professionals who were in a leadership position for the first time.
In the specific questions about the career transition to leadership, the first block was directed to the preparation offered by the company for the development of leaders.
To develop new leaders, it is essential that companies engage more experienced managers to prepare newcomers to take the position (Charan et al. 2018). Dutra and Dutra (2020) also suggest that the company adopt corporate education actions to develop the required skills, when assuming the leadership role.
Most respondents (61.7%) interviewed indicated that the role of leadership and its responsibilities were well defined by the company. A significant portion of the sample (29.8%), however, did not find this attitude on the part of the company. For Ibarra (2009), it is essential, before a transition, to ask about the profile to be developed, and whether the professional is really interested in taking on the new role. Shein (1996) states that there is no way to have the notion of knowing if we are capable of a function, if we do not test it. For this, the role and responsibilities must be clear.
For Brant and Dutra (2020), companies need to use performance evaluation to identify potential leaders and develop those who already occupy the position. A significant number of professionals (46.8%) indicate that companies do not regularly adopt leadership performance assessment, a worrying fact, which points to the lack of monitoring by companies in the development of their leaders.
Another action for the development of a leader is mentoring, according to Sant'Anna (2021). In the sample surveyed, more than half (53.2%) do not identify a mentoring program for the development of leaders in the company.
The lack of investment in the development of leaders, pointed out in the performance evaluation and mentoring items, is corroborated by the other questions related to the company's actions, to develop leadership in the three items pointed out by Charan et al. (2018), necessary for a leader to prepare for his role: learning new skills, managing his time and assuming new values.
Regarding skill, 70.2% of respondents did not identify or identified few actions for the development of this aspect. Regarding time management, 59.6% of respondents said that the company's guidance to develop this item was insufficient or did not occur. The considerable majority of 78.8% indicate that they are little or nothing prepared by the company to apply new values in its role as a leader.
In relation to other leadership development actions by the company, 61.7% of the professionals in the sample indicate that it is insufficient, or that there are no such initiatives on the part of the organization.
Among the most used actions, according to the proposal by Dutra and Dutra (2020) for leadership development, the results show that the most adopted actions are: feedback by team employees, learning from fellow managers, both with 23 .40%, followed by coaching; mentoring and feedback by managers with 21.27%. Meetings, readings and trips with superiors are in third place, with 19.14%, followed by peer feedback, with 10.63%, and other unspecified actions, with 8.51%. A significant part of the sample (21.27%), however, points out that there is no action for the development of leaders by the company.
The second block of questions aims to identify the greatest difficulties in exercising leadership, and the results point to consistency with the theories studied.
The results corroborate the theory, as 68% of the research participants agree that one of the difficulties in becoming a leader was not performing the technical/operational functions and ensuring that such tasks are well performed by the team members; pointed out by 78.7% of respondents as something difficult to be done.
A good number of managers agree that it is difficult to demand results from their team (48.9%). For this reason, many are tempted to perform operational tasks (44.7%). However, 80.8% say they do not look for operational tasks in their daily routine, demonstrating detachment from the old function and preparation for the career transition to leadership. Which explains some data shown below in relation to the development of these leaders.
One positive point of the results found is that, although companies are not very effective in developing their leaders, the professionals themselves found the need to make a change and learn new skills. When asked about transitioning from the operational routine to the role of manager, 51% said they had an easy way with this process. It is assumed that these professionals already had a good level of self-knowledge, pointed out by Dutra (2019), as a fundamental aspect to be clear about their purpose and to be able to achieve objectives and goals.
From the questions pointed out by Charan et al. (2018) for leadership development, 89.3% of respondents agree that it was necessary to develop new skills that were not practiced before assuming the management position; almost all (95.8%) observe the need to change the way time is managed because, as pointed out by Lourenzo (2021), when assuming a position of leader, the routine is no longer defined only by those who exercise it and if starts to consider the team members. And, in the last item, related to the change in values, 74.4% believe it is necessary to transform, or acquire new values, for the exercise of leadership, corroborating the theory of the leadership pipeline by Charan et al. (2018), which points out a deep need to change values in the first pass, from self-leader to leader of others.
This awareness of the need to develop explains some positive results in relation to the exercise of management. Such as, for example, 93.6% of respondents said they found it easy to recognize a job well performed by a subordinate and 66% said they did not have difficulty accepting that any task is performed differently from what they used to do before becoming a leader; 97.6% understand that one of the main functions of the leader is to develop the other collaborators of his team; 78.7% find it easy to distribute tasks among team members, which can be explained by their awareness of making changes in the way they manage their time; 89.4% of leaders demonstrated that they are able to assist employees in the development of tasks, when necessary; in terms of expanding the network of relationships, 80.8% found this need. The fact that the largest sample surveyed has been in the position for over a year explains this preparation of managers.
Such demonstrated skills are related to soft skills, identified by Lourenzo (2021), as essential to the exercise of leadership. Charan et al. (2018) corroborate this thought, stating that the development of leaders, within the leadership pipeline, should rely on soft skills, including assigning tasks to subordinates, developing employees and establishing relationships: skills that are well developed in professionals surveyed.
Of the professionals surveyed, 78.8% feel prepared to be leaders, while practically half (46.8%) say they are afraid of appearing incompetent, so the flight to operational tasks is tempting, as there is a identification with them, carried out before the transition (Charan et al. 2018). This feeling of incompetence and inadequacy can be explained by the organizations' lack of investment in the development of leaders, as presented in this research. This explains the fact that more than half (57.4%) feel anxiety and stress when taking the lead.
A final issue that clarifies the need for the organization to be involved and committed to the leadership pipeline is that a good part of respondents (51%) affirm that the company does not have a well-structured selection process to assess the profile of candidates for leadership positions.

CONCLUSION
The central conclusion of this discussion affirms the importance of selecting and choosing prepared professionals, and developing them properly to exercise leadership effectively, focusing not only on the occupation of the position and technical skills (hard skills) but, mainly, on behavioral skills (soft skills) to obtain an effective management according to a contemporary scenario.
For this to happen, it is important to understand the challenges of taking on the new role; carry out immersions in self-knowledge and self-development; develop and improve new skills; unlearn to learn; and, create a posture in the face of the new scenario and attributions.
Foreseeing the difficulties that will possibly be faced allows prior preparation to avoid pitfalls, frustrations, dismissals and disappointments, which take the leader away from his responsibilities.
Teams are short of good leaders, and followers are fed up of leaders who dictate what must be done and who are unproductive, unprepared, and unqualified. No one can stand the idea of a boss, with a badge around his neck, taking a place within the organization anymore.
Those who actually lead are their own leaders; he performs, inspires, develops people, is well-informed, works with his mindset, communicates, guides, prepares planning, learns in the same proportion as he teaches. Unlearn to learn, innovate, exercise active listening, meet goals, deliver, are human and fulfill themselves (personally and professionally).
Therefore, it is understood that self-knowledge, continuous learning, good choices in the selection process, adequate profile, desire, preparation, training, experiences, and dedication are keywords for a path full of success, experiences, lessons learned, performance, facts and Protagonism.