Congratulations, you made it to the top! Years of honest hard work, diligence and sincerity have paid off, and now you are either a member of the C-suite or the CEO herself. You have a large organization reporting to you. You have either already met your personal financial goals or are well on the way to doing so. The external trappings of your success (e.g. nice car, house, holidays, and golf memberships) are all too visible – most people would give an arm and a leg to be in your position. In short, you are a leader, you are successful and you should be happy, right?
Well, not so fast. Read each of the following statements and think carefully. Then make a mental check mark to it if it applies to you:
- One of your biggest problems is getting and retaining the right top talent. Many of your key positions are staffed by people who are not the best fit for the role. You also have “Divas” who either think no end of themselves or don’t want to work too hard, or both. When you try to give them feedback, you are accused of not making enough effort to understand their point of view. The boss is always wrong.
- If you listen to all the feedback and advice you get, you end up abandoning your out-of-the-box ideas without giving them a fair chance. If you persist despite the feedback, you are called autocratic and dictatorial. It is getting increasingly lonely at the top.
- If you use a democratic and inclusive style of leadership as your default, people get too comfortable, begin to take you for granted, and performance becomes sub-optimal. On the other hand when you take a firmer approach and demand performance, you are labeled as too much of a task master. Either way you may lose.
- There is constant pressure to have all the answers, fix what is wrong, and produce financial results in a highly competitive and fast changing environment. The sheer amount of information and advice available on how to lead an organization to maximum success is overwhelming.
- Neither your employees nor your Board of Directors see the full picture of the challenges you juggle all the time, yet they are quick to form opinions about your performance as a leader.
- Your organization is growing and doing well but you feel it is not achieving its full potential. You try hard to lead by example but the culture of your organization is not what it should be. While people happily second guess you at every move, you have no one to vent your frustrations to.
- In the age of social media, it is easy for anyone to tarnish the reputation of others. As a leader, every word you speak and each step you take can be misinterpreted and broadcasted.
- You wish you had a less contentious relationship with your Board and other key stakeholders. Even while you are working as fast as you can to stay above water, you find yourself having to defend and explain your actions all the time. Whatever the reasons, the lack of support is draining yet you need to have them as strategic allies. It often feels like swimming against the tide.
- The years are rolling by fast. You have worked hard to get to where you are now, but are beginning to question what life is all about, and what’s next for you. While it seems you have achieved almost everything a normal person would desire, you do not feel happy and fulfilled. What had seemed all important in the past is suddenly less so, but you have had no time to step off the pedal and think things through.
If several of the above challenges apply to you, you are not alone. Welcome to the world of senior leadership. There is hardly any C-Suite person that does not struggle with at least some of these. Through our executive coaching, senior leadership training and advisory work, we come across many senior executives who tell us about similar struggles. When we ask them what they think the solution might be, very often we are told that that it might be time for them to either look for another job, go entrepreneurial, or to call it a day altogether. While one of those three might well be the right thing to do in some situations, our experience tells us that in most cases it is not. Very often when someone changes a job or profession for reasons similar to the statements above, one finds himself in the same position in the next venture.
So what is the long-term solution? Unfortunately I don’t have any easy cookie-cutter answers here. However, we have observed that those who manage to successfully navigate through the toughest of personal and organizational challenges have usually mastered eight important transitions. The first six define their personal orientation, and the remaining two are about how they lead their organizations:
1. From blissful unawareness to emotional self-awareness.
Enough has been said about the virtues of emotional intelligence, and chances are you’ve taken an EQ assessment or two already. EQ training has been making the rounds in corporate leadership programs for quite a while now, yet it is amazing how few people can clearly articulate their deeply held values. This is a serious issue because unless one is totally clear about one’s core values, one cannot answer the “why” of their own existence. And unless one is clear about the “why,” it is impossible to navigate successfully through life’s challenges. Our values determine if we feel happy, sad, angry or peaceful in any given situation. A mismatch between one of our values and the situation at hand makes us feel a negative emotion like fear, anger or sadness, and a match makes us feel happy and at peace. So unless we fully understand our values, we cannot recognize and understand our emotions. Whatever we do or don’t do in life, and how we react to any situation or challenge, depends directly on the energy produced by our emotions. Without the ability to recognize and understand our emotions, we cannot channel our emotional energy towards the right direction. In other words, our emotional energy gives us the reason “why.” The “why” decides if we should give up or stay the course in any situation. And the “why” comes from clarity of values.
Consider Haruka Nishimatsu, former CEO of Japan Airlines
The formula works quite well and some of us eventually find ourselves in the C-suite. But despite all the external markings of success, we sometimes feel unfulfilled. Why? Because along the way, we miss a critical ingredient of success, happiness and leadership – a clear purpose over and above our own (and family’s) economic well-being. Without a sense of higher purpose, one remains trapped either in jungle existence where it is all about the bigger house, bigger car and more money, or in the duty trap where one blames one’s family responsibilities for not doing what one really wants to do. In either case, the feelings of real happiness, success and meaningful leadership alludes him. People who find true happiness, success and leadership first understand the “why” of their existence through their values as explained above, then use that knowledge to determine a larger purpose for themselves. So values provide the “why” and purpose provides the “what” of life. A clear sense of purpose emanating from a set of deeply held values maximizes emotional energy, and in turn, one’s personal well-being. As Franklin D Roosevelt rightly said, “Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” Unfortunately, most self-help and leadership literature largely ignores the inner/deeper “why” and “what,” and focuses instead on over the surface skills - the “how.
3. From bland to authentic communication.
Leadership is about convincing and motivating people to join you in achieving your purpose. They realize that the world is too complex for them to navigate alone, and do their best to enlist as many people in their journey as possible. They create a sense of shared purpose. Instead of demanding compliance, they invoke deep motivation and loyalty towards a common purpose. In this sense, they maximize the emotional energy of their people. One tool they use to do so is authentic and powerful communication.A leader communicates authentically when she speaks with passion about her purpose, and paints a picture of a better future. She explains why (based on her values) the purpose is so important for her, and invites her people to dig deep into their own values and decide if they want to join the journey. Again, rather than the how, she focuses her communication more on the “why” and the “what.” Once she is able to invoke her people’s emotional energy in this way, she is able to multiply her own energy through others. Bosses who don’t have clarity of purpose simply communicate goals and KPI’s without deep passion about the why and the what. Accordingly, instead of inspired followership, they get just compliance from their people.
4. From a competitive to collaborative mindset.
A typical problem solver aka practical person has the mindset of winning as much as possible. He sees life as full of zero sum game and believes that in order for him to win; someone else will have to lose. So he does his best to avoid conflict. If conflict becomes unavoidable, he tries to reach a compromise solution as soon as possible. He quickly rationalizes in his mind that if he cannot have it all, he must try to get as much as possible under the circumstances because ‘meeting half way’ seems like the fair thing to do anyway. A real leader who has done the inner work of creating values and purpose clarity usually understands that not only is conflict an unavoidable part of life, it is a necessary pre-requisite to creating the best possible future. So rather than seeing life as full of zero sum games, he sees life full of win-win possibilities wherein both parties not only win, they expand the pie while doing so. The key to developing a collaborative mindset lies in understanding that in most conflict situations both parties can get exactly what they want if they reframe the problem from competitive to collaborative. A competitive problem is one where the question is one of who wins and who loses. When Egypt and Israel were fighting a bloody war over the Sinai Peninsula, the competitive problem was, ‘who gets to keep the peninsula?’ Only when they were able to reframe the problem from competitive to collaborative (how should we equally address Egypt’s need for sovereignty and Israel’s need for security?) did they achieve long lasting peace through the Camp David accords in 1978.
A competitive mindset tries to derive maximum value out of an existing pie. Leaders with a collaborative mindset convert adversaries into partners and increase the size of the pie itself, thereby enhancing value for both parties.
5. From managing to inspiring performance.
Typical problem solving bosses manage the performance of their subordinates. They set goals at the beginning of each year, provide tools to get the job done, give feedback regularly, evaluate performance once or twice a year, and give rewards/compensation at the end of the year as appropriate. On the face of it, nothing seems wrong here. After all, isn’t this what managers are supposed to do anyway? Yes, it is true that managers must manage the performance of their people through a year-round performance management cycle as described. But the best “purpose and values leaders” do more. They ‘inspire’ performance by aligning the strengths, aspirations, purpose and values of each of their people with the shared bigger picture – the better future the team or organization is trying to create. Instead of simply assigning tasks and KPIs, such leaders go to great lengths to understand the inner motivations of each of their people, and guide performance by matching the work with those inner motivations.
During my own corporate career I had the good fortune to work for such a leader. For years, he selflessly taught me all the skills he could to help me learn and grow. He took the trouble to understand my inner motivations, and gave me every opportunity possible to flourish. On my part, I gave him inspired followership year after year. Thanks to his continued kindness, I acquired all the skills and experience needed to qualify for the top job in our function within the company at the time. So I approached him and asked for a promotion. Since he was in that job himself, it was not possible for him to promote me until he decided to step down. Rather than being upset with me for my audacity of asking for his job, he actually helped me find a top job in another organization. Yes, my own boss helped me find my next job at another company. Did he do a disservice to the company we were working for at the time? Wasn’t he supposed to retain high performing top talent? No, he did nothing wrong. In fact he did the right thing both for me and the company. That it was right for me is obvious. It was right for the company too because rather than retaining an unhappy employee, he was able to promote someone else to the position vacated by me, and continue to produce results for the company. In turn, as a good alumni of the company I learned so much from, I introduced my new company to the old company, and made the new company a customer of the old company. Win-win all around.
6. From anger and resentment to forgiveness.
The final personal orientation transition is to develop the habit of forgiving. Leaders that understand their “why” and “what” do not allow petty, or even substantial inter-personal issues to come in the way of them living life based on their values and purpose. Instead of teaching a fitting lesson to those who hurt them, they tend to forgive them and move on. They do not lose energy on revenge, anger and blame because they understand that ‘an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind.’ Nelson Mandela famously forgave his oppressors. After the end of apartheid, which had fostered racial separation and kept blacks impoverished, Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected President. Some in his political party clamored for revenge against members of the previous regime or perhaps even all privileged white people. Instead, to avoid violence, stabilize and unite the nation, and attract investment in the economy, Mandela appointed a racially integrated cabinet, visited the widow of one of the top apartheid leaders, and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would clear the air and permit moving forward. Imagine if President Mandela had ordered revenge instead?
Contrary to conventional wisdom, forgiving takes much more courage and strength than seeking revenge. Only the intrinsically strong can forgive. Weak people, usually those without any clarity of personal values and purpose, find it extremely difficult to forgive because their sense of self-worth depends on how they believe society perceives them. They seek revenge in order to be seen as strong and powerful.
7. From organizational performance to vision.
Having successfully made the above six personal orientation transitions, the best leaders apply similar principles while leading the organizations they head. The first is to shift from simply establishing organizational targets like 5% increase in market share or 15% return on equity, to shaping a vision and mission for the organization. An organization’s mission is the core service it provides to its customers and to society as a whole. Rather than simply seeing the work as a job or business, a real leader sees the organization’s mission as a purpose that creates a better future for customers and other stakeholders. For example, one scientist may create a pharmaceutical company simply with the purpose of making maximum money, while another scientist may create the same company with the purpose of saving and enhancing human life. Clearly, the latter is an example of a purposeful mission.
Vision on the other hand is the leadership position the organization wants to achieve for itself while pursuing its mission. For example, the first pharma company may simply want to become the biggest company in terms of revenue and profits, the second may have the same goals but also one of being the most respected. In any case, the point is, “purpose and values’ leaders find meaning in their job and business – they don’t just live to make money.
8. From reactive to proactive organizational development.
Just as they shape a higher mission and vision for their organization, the best leaders take control of developing their organization’s core capabilities. Rather than leaving it to chance, they proactively define a set of organizational values, then work hard to create a culture that lives and rewards behavior according to those shared values. This involves developing processes, practices and policies to recruit, develop, retain and reward people who believe in the organization’s core mission and vision, and live the values every day. Of the original 500 companies that made it in the first Fortune 500 list in 1955, only 71 remained in 2008. The enduring 71 include names like Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, Ford, General Motors and Exxon. What did these companies do differently? Or better still, what did the leaders of these companies do differently? They built organizational cultures that created leaders at all levels. By proactively shaping policies and procedures that encourage the right behaviors, leaders at these companies have created long lasting endurance. Some of these companies hit rock bottom at some point in their history, but their bones and nerves (organizational architecture and culture) were strong enough to enable them to bounce back.
Strong organizations are not built by half-hearted attempts of shaping a values based culture. Deep sincerity of intent, coupled by day in-day out role modelling is required on the part of leaders that want to create enduring institutions.
There is no immunity from the loneliness and challenges that come with C-suite leadership. And don’t expect others to understand your agony either, because in the eyes of most people, you are successful, happy and powerful. What else could you ask for, they think. But deep down if you are unhappy or feeling a bit empty, ask yourself this: When my life is over, what impact will I have made and for whom? Then, honestly assess if you have successfully made the above eight transitions. It is never too late to begin the journey of self-reflection. The most successful and happy leaders in the world have one thing in common – they think less about their net-worth, and more about making their life worth living.
