How to Lead Unexpectedly?

An interesting diagram about leadership thinking focus includes: Anticipate, Challenge, Interpret, Decide, Align, Learn, and returns the cycle to Anticipate, so forth. This diagram does provide a helpful insight to a leadership thinking approach. The challenge I discovered in this leadership thinking diagram, even though it will be a great guide to future leaders, is the lack of availability on having this type of leadership thinking diagram when you need to lead unexpectedly. Did you reference a leadership thinking diagram when you just became a leader of a department or an organization?

 All leadership schooling and / or training are valuable insights to absorb for us aspiring to be an effective leader. For those thinking of being a future leader or those not, how would you handle becoming a leader unexpectedly? I learned from leadership schooling and experience that unexpectedly being a leader of a department is probably the most challenging task. What if you are a leader of the entire organization, how more challenging will the task be compared to leading a department?

Everyone in the organization is looking at you for answers. Therefore, I considered we need to understand the expectations from being a leader of the department or the entire organization while maintaining a cool, calm and collective approach to each team member, including everyone in the organization. My limited experience in a leadership role, but working with some great leaders, is discovering that a leader needs to have the ability to motivate others.

If you have experience of becoming a leader unexpectedly, what was the biggest challenge(s) and how did overcome it?

Thank you,

Salvador Soto, MSA