Relying on previous successes can impede leaders and organizations
Next-level leaders: In March, the Strategic Capability Network hosted a special event with Scott Eblin, president of coaching firm The Eblin Group, to talk about how to help ensure leaders succeed in their new role. For more information about SCNetwork, visit www.scnetwork.ca.
Promotions mean learning, unlearning
SCNetwork’s panel of thought leaders brings decades of experience from the senior ranks of Canada’s business community. Their commentary puts HR management issues into context and looks at the practical implications of proposals and policies.
Failing to adapt linked to leadership failure
Too many new leaders are relying on the behaviours that got them to their new position and are not willing to learn new behaviours, which often leads to failure, according to Scott Eblin, president of Herndon, Va.-based executive coaching firm The Eblin Group.
This adherence to old success can also be seen in organizations as a whole, said Eblin, speaking at a Strategic Capability Network event in Toronto last month. For example, General Motors relied on the success of its sports utility vehicles and steadfastly maintained the course even when the market had changed, he said.
Now, the automaker is facing possible bankruptcy and is desperately trying to secure bailout funds from both the United States and Canadian governments.
“The tactics and behaviours of previous success leave big, successful companies unable to adapt,” said Eblin.
Statistics back up failure rates
On a personal level, this inability to adapt leads to a failure rate for new executives of anywhere from 22 per cent to 50 per cent, depending on the study cited, with the 40-per-cent rate most often quoted, said Eblin.
His own survey of 30 executives found a failure rate of 34 per cent for externally hired new leaders and 22 per cent for those promoted internally. Regardless of which figure is correct, failure of senior leaders costs companies dearly — as much as $2.7 million US per senior leader, said Eblin.
“There’s a problem here,” he said. “It’s not like we promote the worst and the dumbest, we’re talking about the best and the brightest.”
The problem is the skills that make someone successful in a non-leadership role aren’t the same skills that will make him a good leader.
“The further up you go, the less it’s about what you know in terms of technical abilities and more about how you work with others and how you lead others,” said Eblin. “A lot of this can be taught if the executive is willing to change.”
The most common reasons for new leaders not working out are: poor communication skills, weak relationships, person or job mismatch, unclear expectations and sticking with old habits, according to a 2006 study by Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business in Bloomington, Ind.
Leaders have to learn new beliefs and behaviours and let go of the old ones, said Eblin. It’s knowing what to let go of and what to pick up that makes all the difference to a leader’s success, he said.
3 perspectives
To figure out which behaviours don’t work and which are needed, leaders need to look at themselves and their roles from three different perspectives, said Eblin.
The first is personal presence — how the leader sees himself and how others see him. The best leaders are secure and confident, said Eblin. Nothing is more likely to lead to failure than insecurity and self-doubt. It’s important for leaders to realize they made it to where they are because they have the ability to succeed, said Eblin.
The second is team presence — how the person leads and leverages the skills of the team to get the most out of individual team members. Leaders need to learn to rely less on themselves and more on their team, said Eblin. They need to narrow their focus to just those tasks only they can do and leave the rest to their team.
The third is organizational presence — understanding how the external environment affects the organization and the individual’s role, as well as the reach the individual has within the organization and beyond.
“Leaders are always onstage,” said Eblin. “That’s one of the things we have to help our leaders understand, is how visible they are and how much people are taking their cues from them.”
One CEO discovered this after thinking aloud to a group of employees about how the company would benefit from having more employees like those at IBM. Six months later, there were a whole lot of former IBM employees at the company and this led to a major culture clash, said Eblin.
Part of organizational presence is also being able to look beyond the leader’s function to see the big business picture, said Eblin. To do this, leaders need to learn to pace themselves and build in breaks from work, something high-potential employees are unlikely to do, he said. This also gives them time to deal with unexpected problems.
Keeping these three perspectives in mind, a leader can figure out where he needs to be and choose the one or two behaviours and skills that will help him get there, said Eblin.
Once those behaviours are selected, the leader should talk to some stakeholders, both reports and superiors, to ask for ideas on how to improve on those behaviours. The leader should then check in with those same stakeholders periodically to see what kind of progress has been made.
Letting go
What leaders need to let go of, and pick up, to succeed
The skills and strengths that help someone climb the executive ranks aren’t the same ones needed to survive and thrive once there. To succeed, leaders need to know which old behaviours and beliefs to let go of and which ones to pick up. Scott Eblin, president of executive coaching firm The Eblin Group and author of Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success, has the following advice for leaders:
Let go of self-doubt. An insecure executive makes a lousy leader. Put confidence in your presence and purpose — even if it doesn’t come naturally at first.
Let go of running flat-out until you crash. Working 24/7 may have made you a superstar. But keep up this behaviour when you’re at the top — where the expectations are enormous — and you’ll burn out. Break the cycle by building time for recovery and renewal into your schedule.
Let go of one-size-fits-all communication. Customize every message for the group and goals at hand. Less is more, so become a master of the headline.
Let go of self-reliance. Replace “me” with “we.” You may have advanced on your own but now you’re only as good as your team.
Let go of the urge to tell “how.” No more micromanaging. Set the agenda for what gets done and leave the how to your team.
Let go of responsibility. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Responsibility for a few results belongs to your team. Accountability for many results belongs to you.
Let go of only looking up and down. There’s more to consider than what’s up with the boss or what’s going down with the subordinates. Look left and right, too. Partnerships with peers are key to success.
Let go of an inside-out view. An internal perspective may have served you in the past but not now. Lead with an outside-in view by understanding the issues in the external environment.
Let go of the small footprint. Your days of being “low profile” are over. At the top, you act and speak on behalf of your entire company. Mind your manners — and your messages.
SCNetwork’s panel of thought leaders brings decades of experience from the senior ranks of Canada’s business community. Their commentary puts HR management issues into context and looks at the practical implications of proposals and policies.
The highest level of leadership
By Dave Crisp
Scott Eblin’s presentation was enjoyable and insightful and reinforced many of the core elements of how leaders can improve in practical ways. However, it also highlighted two reasons why it is so challenging to develop truly effective leaders: Judgment and balance.
Knowing what it takes to get settled into the “next level” is helpful, but it’s not enough to get to the top or to achieve outstanding performance.
As Eblin notes, organizations lose people by throwing them in the deep end of the next higher job with little preparation or coaching support. This sink-or-swim scenario is often recommended in articles that emphasize what top leaders keep telling us: Leaders develop best through experience in challenging leadership roles. Ideally, organizations rotate them through several different areas and give them enough time to reflect, learn and create impact. “Throwing people in” will and must continue. But what needs to improve is preparation and coaching support.
Eblin’s advice is designed for the prospective leader: “Don’t assume that what got you here will work when you get up there.” Leaders themselves have the greatest capability to turn themselves into better leaders, so it’s critical for them to understand a promotion also demands a change in behaviour.
Where I differ on this front is a bit subtle. Eblin says leaders should “stop certain behaviours and start new, better ones.” I almost agree. You have to learn how to do the better ones and use them a lot, but I believe that you never give up a behaviour and there will continue to be situations in which an old behaviour is the right one — align your choice of behaviour to the people and situation.
In the highest level of leadership, Eblin is correct CEOs do a lot of things for the first time. They may face entirely novel challenges on a daily basis. But leaders at every level need rapid learning skills to adjust to new demands from fast-changing circumstances. That’s what distinguishes superior, not just senior, leaders from weak ones. Leadership is about pushing forward into untested, perhaps even unknown, territory. If you’re not trying to invent, improve and push forward in your job (and take others with you), you really aren’t a leader.
In his list of “give up to improve,” Eblin recommends leaders stop doubting their contributions and build confidence. That’s good advice, which many leaders understandably would find challenging. Driving toward unknown outcomes can feel scary and uncertain. Others may not believe in the strategies being pitched, so leaders need to exude confidence to convince them to get on-board — timid attempts won’t cut it.
But confidence needs to be kept in check. The day you give up the last shred of doubt or stop questioning if you’re on the right track is the day your ego takes over and you stop seeking advice, input and feedback — one of the very pitfalls Eblin points to in failing leaders, such as those at General Motors who didn’t listen to the need for change. The bottom line is you need both: Confidence to lead the way plus enough doubt to keep searching for improvements. Balancing these and many similar, contradictory needs with sensitivity and skill are the true hallmarks of the highest-level leadership judgment.
Dave Crisp is SCNetwork’s lead commentator on leadership in action. He shows clients how to improve results with better HR management and leadership. He has a wealth of experience, including 14 years leading HR at Hudson Bay Co., where he took the 70,000-employee retailer to “best company to work for” status. For more information, visit www.CrispStrategies.com.
From the outside looking in
By Matt Hemmingsen
Why do some leaders value the richness of their company’s culture and heritage and others do not? Why is it some leaders see opportunities where others do not? How are some leaders able to safely navigate their enterprise through the turmoil of volatile markets?
More importantly, what inner criteria do these leaders possess that enable them to chart the right course of action and ensure their longer-term stability and sustainability? One has only to survey the current economic landscape to see examples of where this “rich leadership” resides and where it does not.
In a 2009 Chief Executive article looking at the Best Companies for Leaders — an annual study done by Hay Group in partnership with Chief Executive — leadership development is cited as “one cornerstone of superior competitiveness.” The study also states what organizations value most in leaders — strategic thinking, execution and decision-making capabilities.
In his book The Next Level, Scott Eblin builds upon this perspective, presenting his three components of “executive presence” — personal, team and organizational. Within each, Eblin references the concepts of picking up and letting go. To move to organizational presence, Eblin reinforces the need for executives to pick up an “outside-in view” of their organization as well as a “big footprint view” of their role.
Eblin is on the right track. Business leaders must operate with a longer-term and holistic view for their organizations’ continued sustainability. They can no longer rely on a limited, short-term maximization strategy. So how can this be done?
Fundamentally, leaders must acquire that “outside-in” perspective. Fully understanding their go-to-market value proposition is essential. Only by actively listening to and seeking out diverse opinions from all invested parties — customers, suppliers, employees and industry observers — can leaders openly confront “the way we do our business.” They must engage these perspectives to access a broader view of their real challenges and opportunities. Coupled with this, leaders must learn to continually revisit and question every role, including their own, to ensure direct alignment with the organization’s desired end state. No longer can organizations afford to maintain a static, structural environment.
This is what makes successful leaders. They distance themselves from their competition through the people and information they access. Their organizations are fast, fluid and flexible, and they accept the fundamental principle that the customer drives change and, in turn, their business model. They lead their organizations from the outside looking in.
Matt Hemmingsen is SCNetwork’s lead commentator on strategic capability. He has held senior HR leadership roles in global corporations. He is a managing partner with Personal Strengths Canada, a member of an international company focused on improving business performance through relationship awareness. For more information, visit www.personalstrengths.ca or e-mail [email protected].
Next-level leadership
By Tom Tavares
Scott Eblin repeatedly referred to the plight of the domestic automotive industry in his presentation on the next level of leadership. However, what has happened to North American institutions extends well beyond Detroit. The technology sector, airlines and financial services are also in shambles.
We have witnessed breakdowns in the internal controls of corporations, accounting firms, regulatory agencies and the media. Buckling in intelligence-gathering, education and health care has also been reported in detail.
Eblin’s model for advancing successfully to the next level of leadership emphasizes executive presence in personal, team and organizational contexts. He employs a concept of letting go and picking up more effective habits as individuals advance to more senior levels of responsibility. In coaching leaders, he focuses on issues such as confidence, breadth of perspective and the unique contribution individuals can make in executive roles.
To illustrate his concept of “letting go and picking up,” Eblin mentioned the North American automobile industry’s dependence on revenues from sales of highly profitable sport utility vehicles. Members of the audience cited short-term thinking as a pattern industry executives needed to let go of to create more adaptive enterprises. Of course, a focus on short-term results is not confined to the automotive sector.
Short-term thinking is found in all kinds of companies regardless of the industry, culture or leaders, as are other behavioural patterns such as weak internal communication and low levels of innovation, teamwork and coaching. The field of organizational effectiveness has largely been shaped by efforts to offset these patterns through strategic planning, employee surveys, creativity training, team-building and performance-review programs.
Unfortunately, those interventions have had little lasting impact on everyday behaviour. As the rate of change has accelerated, the inflexibility of these patterns of action has played a large part in preventing companies from keeping pace. This, in turn, has generated enormous pressure on top leaders, which accounts for the rapid growth in the demand for support and executive coaching over the last two decades.
The consistency of behavioural patterns at all levels of organizations raises questions about executive coaching. Will a focus on the behaviour of relatively few people at the top have a significant impact on the overall adaptability of companies? More fundamentally, the uniformity of behavioural patterns points to environmental factors rather than the personal attributes. Will leadership improve significantly by working on the individual attributes of one leader at a time?
We need answers to a number of basic questions: What is the source of universal patterns of organizational behaviour? Why have traditional approaches proven ineffective? Most importantly, what happens in unusual cases when day-to-day behaviour shifts and organizational performance are transformed?
Although it would be an exaggeration to say every institution is in crisis, it is clear there is a fundamental flaw in the current approach to managing organizations. A clearer understanding of this challenge is vital if HR leaders, consultants and coaches are to help leadership advance to the next level.
Tom Tavares is SCNetwork’s lead commentator on organizational effectiveness and a senior organizational psychologist. In addition to managing in large corporations, consulting in varied industries and coaching executives, he has written extensively about the relationship between business performance, behaviour and change. He can be reached at [email protected].
Next executive series
Would you like to attend one of the upcoming Breakfast Series in Toronto?
May: Talent strategy that endures market volatility, with Sanjiv Kumar, and highlights of the HRPS annual global conference, with a panel of members, May 28.
June: Business relationships — why good strategies go bad and what you can do about it, with Dr. Diana McLain Smith, June 18.
July: Beyond the deal — integration of newly acquired companies, with Hubert Saint-Onge.
September: Creative agility — key competence for leadership succession, with Jim Peters.
Visit www.scnetwork.ca for more information.
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