Alumni Profiles - Foundations of Leadership & Leadership Development Program (LDP)

Two CCL^® programs help smooth a valued employee's path from the technical side into management.

When Harold Moore won promotion into the managerial ranks at Lorillard Tobacco Co., the valued employee of some 30 years looked forward to this new career path. But he also felt a twinge of uneasiness. "I had always been a technical person and I read articles about how hard it is for a technical person to move into management because it is so different," he said. "I knew a lot about computers, but I didn't know very much about leading people." Two widely spaced CCL programs went far to help ease his transition.

A month before plunging into his new position as project leader of server and desktop technology, Moore attended Foundations of Leadership to learn the essentials of effective leadership. Through feedback from his supervisors and peers at work, Moore gained a great deal of assurance about his capabilities and interpersonal style. "I was a little scared, wondering what people would say," he said, "but what I found was that I'm a lot harder on myself than anybody else is. The feedback was very good and reassuring." Along with gaining an honest appraisal of his strengths and developmental needs, Moore absorbed lessons on communicating clearly, managing conflict and motivating himself and others.

The CCL experience, Moore found, was different from every other professional and technical course he had taken over the years. "It was the only time I had attended a program where the focus is on you - how people perceive you, how you perceive yourself, and what your particular developmental needs are."

Eighteen months after completing Foundations of Leadership, Moore returned to the Center to attend the more in-depth Leadership Development Program. Having settled into his job of overseeing technical support of his company's thousands of computer users and its hundreds of servers, he was now able to receive a fresh appraisal of his impact and to focus on goals such as improving his feedback skills.

"I'm not terribly comfortable giving feedback, but LDP gives you a lot of practice giving and receiving it," he said. "I've worked on that, and I know my staff appreciates it. I've encouraged them to give me feedback as well."

It has been a fast-paced year and a half since Moore moved into management. Given high grades by his staff for coolness under pressure and evenhandedness in resolving conflicts, he reflects that the greatest impact from the two CCL programs was in making him more aware of himself and others. "I learned how important it is to pay attention to how others perceive you and to actively engage them," he said. "It is different being in management," he added, "but the hardest part was giving up the hands-on technical side of it. I'm enjoying being a manager."

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