When Changing Senior Leadership Becomes Personal

The Challenge:

Evaluating, or considering changes with Senior Leadership can be a considerable challenge.  Many times this executive has become more than a coworker. When leading together in times of both war and peace, a bond develops with deep emotional ties.  Sometimes, this leader had been hand-picked, mentored, and championed throughout the organization by you.

While these attributes of assessment, and change seem to be universal when reviewing any member of your Team, considering the future success of a senior executive reporting to you may bear extensive personal risks as well.   The “perception ladder”  holds more stakeholders when the reach of the senior executive extends beyond their own closely held team. 

As an example, typically the performance of an individual team member (with lesser company strategic impact) is perceived by perhaps only a few associates in addition to themselves and their immediate manager. However, when a leader’s career grows, and they extend their reach and impact upon the greater organization including its customers, vendors, employees and even its brand, there are far more contributors to the joint perception of the success (or lack thereof) of a leader.

As a result, the perceived performance or potential for success of the senior leader brings a shared responsibility to you, from amongst your peers. These peers, at the highest senior executive level of the company may tend to evaluate your personal performance on the merits of those you have hired, mentored, and led to make you more successful.

Perceptions may seem unfair or without merit because of the lack of knowledge of day-to-day challenges, barriers, and successes.  These perceptions of individual performance within the culture of an organization are real, and become more pronounced as the stakes become higher with executive level decision making.   Surrounding yourself with people who can make you more successful can be a double-edged sword when the perceived performance of those around you is not as successful as you would hope. Their perceived lack of integrity in their own performance now reflects on your ability to succeed in the eyes of others.

When evaluating, or considering changes with a senior leader, this “perception ladder” overlaid upon the personal bond that has developed between yourself and the senior leader over time, does indeed create a considerable challenge.

Moving Forward:

Succession planning teaches us more than preparing for the eventual retirement of a key employee. An effective succession planning program ensures leadership continuity and the ability to build talent from within an organization. A key aspect of this ability is a focus upon competencies.

Competency in its pure form seeks to define underlying characteristics of an employee. Items such as skills, description of role, knowledge required, etc. is expected to lead to superior performance. Competency models can therefore help to clarify differences between prescribed levels of performance.

Competencies can also be developed in a visionary form, helping to pinpoint what is required of key employees to be successful into the future. The discovered gap between current and future competencies clearly spell developmental needs for the individual, and on an aggregate basis, the entire organization.

More recently, use of competencies have also been extended to link and align the organization and its culture, to performance of each position. 

I see a competency framework within three specific groups.

• Universal (required of everyone within the organization.   Emphasis upon brand, culture, and values of the organization are stressed here)
• Leadership (measured from all employees in a supervisory, management, or leadership  responsibility of people or programs)
• Individual (knowledge, skill, ability, and experience relative to the specific position)

Channeling the perceptions of others into a formatted series of competency checks can be effective at controlling runaway perceptions based upon factors other than indicators of true success.   When evaluating a senior leader, look outside of your relationship with this coworker, friend, and key employee. Ask yourself, “how is this senior leaders ability to succeed based upon universal, leadership, and individual competencies viewed by those around them?”  

A self evaluation by the senior leader and a separate independent assessment by you will complete the circle of knowledge;

1. Do you have established competencies for this position?

• Universal?
• Leadership?
• Individual?

2. Are these competencies reflecting a future Vision for the Organization and this Position, as well as the current expectations?  Are there future gaps to indicate new development or assessment opportunities?

3. How is this Leader perceived by others within all three competency groups by;

• Self
• Team
• Executive Team
• Other Leaders
• You

4. How are these perceptions impacting on;

• Ability to grow and succeed?
• Engagement of the Team?
• Success of Team throughout the Organization?
• The Organization meeting it’s goals?
• You...

If you want to learn more about the Rare Leader™ in you, 

or if you are interested in retaining Steve as your Executive Coach, 

Contact Steve Riege via: twitter, or his website.

When Delegating Goes Bad

The Challenge:

Evaluating, or considering changes with Senior Leadership can be a considerable challenge.  Many times this executive has become more than a coworker. When leading together in times of both war and peace, a bond develops with deep emotional ties.  Sometimes, this leader had been hand-picked, mentored, and championed throughout the organization by you.

While these attributes of assessment, and change seem to be universal when reviewing any member of your Team, considering the future success of a senior executive reporting to you may bear extensive personal risks as well.   The “perception ladder”  holds more stakeholders when the reach of the senior executive extends beyond their own closely held team. 

As an example, typically the performance of an individual team member (with lesser company strategic impact) is perceived by perhaps only a few associates in addition to themselves and their immediate manager. However, when a leader’s career grows, and they extend their reach and impact upon the greater organization including its customers, vendors, employees and even its brand, there are far more contributors to the joint perception of the success (or lack thereof) of a leader.

As a result, the perceived performance or potential for success of the senior leader brings a shared responsibility to you, from amongst your peers. These peers, at the highest senior executive level of the company may tend to evaluate your personal performance on the merits of those you have hired, mentored, and led to make you more successful.

Perceptions may seem unfair or without merit because of the lack of knowledge of day-to-day challenges, barriers, and successes.  These perceptions of individual performance within the culture of an organization are real, and become more pronounced as the stakes become higher with executive level decision making.   Surrounding yourself with people who can make you more successful can be a double-edged sword when the perceived performance of those around you is not as successful as you would hope. Their perceived lack of integrity in their own performance now reflects on your ability to succeed in the eyes of others.

When evaluating, or considering changes with a senior leader, this “perception ladder”  overlaid upon the personal bond that has developed between yourself and the senior leader over time, does indeed create a considerable challenge.

Moving Forward:

Succession planning teaches us more than preparing for the eventual retirement of a key employee. An effective succession planning program ensures leadership continuity and the ability to build talent from within an organization. A key aspect of this ability is a focus upon competencies.

Competency in its pure form seeks to define underlying characteristics of an employee. Items such as skills, description of role, knowledge required, etc. is expected to lead to superior performance.  Competency models can therefore help to clarify differences between prescribed levels of performance.

Competencies can also be developed in a visionary form, helping to pinpoint what is required of key employees to be successful into the future. The discovered gap between current and future competencies clearly spell developmental needs for the individual, and on an aggregate basis, the entire organization.

More recently, use of competencies have also been extended used to link and align the organization and its culture to performance of each position. 

I see a competency framework within three specific groups.

• Universal (required of everyone within the organization.   Emphasis upon brand, culture, and values of the organization are stressed here)
• Leadership (measured from all employees in a supervisory, management, or leadership  responsibility of people or programs)
• Individual (focused on knowledge, skill, ability, and experience relative to the specific position)

Channeling the perceptions of others into a formatted series of competency checks can be effective at controlling runaway perceptions based upon factors other than indicators of true success.   When evaluating a senior leader, look outside of your relationship with this coworker, friend, and key employee. Ask yourself, 

“How is this senior leaders ability to succeed based upon universal, leadership, and individual competencies as viewed by those around them?”  

A self evaluation by the senior leader and a separate independent assessment by you will complete the circle of knowledge.

Delegating at a senior level brings new and more dangerous implications.  When its good, wow, life is good and you succeed.  But, when it’s bad, yes, it’s really bad.  And when delegating goes bad at a senior level, it is more difficult to unravel and repair, and it impacts you personally.

• Who is a senior level leader you delegate to?
• What competencies exist where you assess delegating?
• Where is delegation with a senior leader in trouble?
• When do you apply competencies to assess delegation success?
• How will you approach a senior leader who is failing?

If you want to learn more about the Rare Leader™ in you, 

or if you are interested in retaining Steve as your Executive Coach, 

Contact Steve Riege via: twitter, or his website.

Cleaned My Desk Today

That is a good Friday feeling.  Wow, it was a tough week. 

I put on my coat, and after placing the wooden hangar on the silver hook mounted on the back of my door, I glanced  into the office, and it felt, oh, so good.  My wife was working late on this Friday, and it gave me a rare opportunity to get things in order.  

Typically, if I stay late on weekdays, the other offices and cubies are filled with colleagues.  Some are busy crunching those final touches on their reports, presentations, or research.  Other work spaces are occupied with the golden children, making certain they are seen working late by the correct people who can continue to support their career climb based on others thinking they put in so many long hard hours.  The rest of the office is cluttered with socializers with no where else to go.  Either way, it makes serious evening work difficult.  

There’s always that 6:30 knock accompanied by “hey, got a minute?”...Actually no, I don’t, but I guess because you already interrupted me, I can give you the other 45 seconds too.  Or there’s noise, commotion, or just other stuff making it difficult to focus on my stuff.  However, on Friday night, when no one wants to be around it was my time.  The other “weekday lions” had better things to do tonight.  It was the beginning of a great weekend.  I was the winner, marked by their absence. 

So on this Friday evening, as I glanced back after putting on my coat, I marveled at such a proud site.  My desk was clean, carrying a remarkable reflection from the 28th floor window overlooking the bright lights of an active city.  Casual onlookers might exclaim, “wow, look, he has a desk with a wooden top”!  Or, “better check the dumpster, he must have filled it.”  

But this time they were all wrong.  No dumpster diving, no desk designing.  Soon, they would all know where the stacks, files, and post it notes went.  This time rather than re-stack, file, or organize the yellows and blues, I actually found a better home for everything that had cluttered my desk while I was busy spending my week being important. This time I Delegated. 

Ah yes, the fine art of delegation.  It’s one of the time honored traditions and trappings that come with success.  You work hard, you get promoted, people work for you, and now you can delegate.  Delegate...I grew up thinking that meant giving people who work for you all the stuff you don't want to do, can’t do, or don’t have time to do.  Sometimes I learned delegating must have been a form of punishment towards people Boss’s didn’t like, or minions that had done something wrong, and now had to pay the price.

Somewhere, I learned delegating meant something more.  When I began to realize the value of hiring great people on my Team, [see “Hiring Up” http://bit.ly/gdPQvG from March 22, 2010] this delegating thing began to take a new shape and a new, more profound meaning.  What if...you actually invited people on your team to become engaged in each-others work?  What if you took this idea a step further and actually invited others to become engaged in your work? And just think, what if you made this work meaningful, made certain your team understood the assignment, motivated them, gave them feedback along the way, and shared in the rewards of a job well done?  I know this sounds crazy, but what if you didn’t micromanage their work?

Well, you’re probably already a step ahead of me in understanding where this thought took me. When I assess why I have been successful, in addition to hiring people smarter than me, I became passionate about engaging them in my work, my success, and my rewards.

Thinking back to that clean wooden desk, it was more than simply finding a better home for all the clutter. I very carefully considered who could help me champion each of these important tasks. Because if I was going to delegate these tasks and projects, they must’ve been important. Being an important task or project was only the beginning. Knowing it was meaningful, I need to make certain my team member had 100% clarity of the project. Realizing each of my employees was different than the other I had to consider what might motivate this employee to be as excited about this project as I was. I decided to make certain I could step up to the plate and help them along the way, (without micromanaging) because in the end I too wanted to make certain there was success to share.  

A Team member empowered through great delegation, will go a long way to ensure success...for them, the organization, and also for me.

1. Who has an uncluttered desk and empowered employees?
2. What can you do to delegate better?
3. Where do you learn how to delegate?
4. When is the best time to begin to delegate?
5. How can you empower employees when delegating?

If you want to learn more about the Rare Leader™ in you, 

or if you are interested in retaining Steve as your Executive Coach, 

Contact Steve Riege via: twitter, or his website.