Fiona Lang of BBC Studios says mastering technical skills early in your career will give you confidence later on.
Ask Fiona Lang, general manager of BBC Studios in Australia and New Zealand, for leadership tips and she responds immediately: do the hard yards and master your skills, even if it gets boring.
“When you move into a general manager role, you don’t frankly have the time to be able to get into the same level of detail, nor is it your job. But what you retain is confidence from the mastery.“Some of what you are doing might seem tedious, but stick with it. I had to understand all the fine detail that needs to go into a deal and contract, and I won’t pretend that was always fun.
The downside of not having real-time feedback is that problems may not become obvious for weeks or months, potentially leaving little time to get on top of them.Ms Lang says the lack of real-time evidence and feedback means leaders need to be constantly assessing and reflecting on their actions and the business as a whole, almost as if they have a “rear vision mirror”.