Good morning and happy Sunday!
The odds are that you have experience either as an executive leader or interacting with one. It’s a tough job, but it’s one that anyone can do!
One day you will find yourself in a leadership role. You might be leading a company or division, leading your family, heading an organization or initiative, or coaching a softball team.
The pitfalls described below are the temptations that will lead you astray. Understand them, and when the day comes for you to lead, you will be prepared!
The Challenges Facing Executive Leaders
The definition of executive leadership is the ability of those who manage or direct employees in an organization to influence and guide these individuals.
The following are the primary pitfalls of executive leadership. It’s only natural for an executive to struggle with one or multiple of the following traps.
1. Choosing status over results
2. Choosing popularity over accountability
3. Choosing certainty over clarity
4. Choosing harmony over conflict
5. Choosing invulnerability over trust
You may or may not have experience as an executive, but either way, it is valuable to know what effective executives do, and how they might be failing the organizations that depend on them.
Pitfall #1: Status over Results
The most important principle that a successful executive will embrace is a desire to produce results.
Most executives got to their position by being results maniacs, but they often end up obtaining their top positions and then using their power to protect their status.
The reason for this is that their true objective has always been personal gain. An emphasis on results previously propelled them upward, but at the top, there is no place to go but down.
This foremost pursuit of personal gain results in the first major pitfall: basing decisions on protecting personal status, reputation, and ego. A CEO won’t be promoted because her big risk paid off, but she might get fired if the initiative failed.
A great executive is able to put their personal considerations aside and decide to pursue the route that is in the best interest of the organization. This may take a lot of work over a long period of time, but it will inevitably lead to better results and better outcomes for both the organization and the executive leader.
Advice: Make results the most important measure of personal success, or step down. The future of your organization is too important to its stakeholders to be held hostage to your ego.
Pitfall #2: Popularity over Accountability
“A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.”
Douglass MacArthur
It’s a bit lonely at the top. But to an extent, that’s how it has to be.
Sometimes, executives who resist Pitfall #1 still fail because they cannot successfully hold their subordinates accountable to deliver results. This happens because of our natural desire to be popular.
Executives likely spend most of their time with their reports. Challenges and responsibilities are shared, and a sense of camaraderie is developed.
This makes it difficult to hold subordinates accountable. When a subordinate is failing in their responsibilities, it is often easier to simply fire them and sever the relationship than it is to hold them accountable with negative feedback and guide them along the way.
Advice: Work for the long-term respect of your direct reports, not for their affection. Don’t view your people as a support group, but as key people who must deliver on their commitments to the organization in order to produce results. Remember, your people won’t like you anyway if they ultimately fail.
Pitfall #3: Certainty over Clarity
“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
Plato
An executive who can resist both Pitfall #1 and Pitfall #2 can still fail due to paralysis and a lack of clarity.
Have you ever felt like your boss is finicky or can’t make a decision and stick with it?
Many executives, particularly those with highly analytical tendencies, are driven by the desire to make “correct” decisions. This can drive them to seek out excessive amounts of feedback, advice, studies, research, and the utilization of other resources before actually executing a decision.
Executives with a need for precision and correctness often postpone decisions and fail to make their people’s deliveries clear. Subordinates are left with a vague and hesitant direction with the hope that they may figure something out. As a result, the status quo is often a default path for organizations.
We live in an imperfect, dynamic world with an excess of uncertainty. In the time it takes an organization held captive by their executive’s quest for a sure decision, another, a more deft organization might have made a decision, learned what they forgot to consider, and pivoted to an even better path forward.
Advice: Make clarity more important than accuracy. Remember that your people will learn more if you take decisive action than if you always wait for more information. If the decisions you make in the spirit of creating clarity turns out to be wrong when more information becomes available, change plans and explain why. It is your job to risk being wrong. The only real cost to you of being wrong is loss of pride. The cost to your company of not taking the risk of being wrong is paralysis.
Pitfall #4: Harmony over Conflict
Most people, including executives, believe that it is better for people to agree and get along rather than disagree and fight with one another. This sense of harmony seems to be the easy way out to avoid hurt feelings.
However, harmony can restrict “productive ideological conflict,” or the passionate interchange of opinions around an issue. In other words, people don’t feel comfortable objecting or saying what they genuinely think is best.
As a result, decisions made without the space for conflict are often suboptimal. The best decisions are made after all perspectives have been put in the open and considered.
Healthy conflict occurs between two or more people that genuinely share the same goal of attaining the best outcome for the organization. It should not be personal, and participants should not fear personal or professional repercussions by taking an alternative stance.
With healthy conflict, better decisions are made, and it has the added bonus of inspiring confidence in those decisions from your people. When people feel their concerns have been considered they are much more likely to participate in the outcome, even if it isn’t the one they hoped for.
Advice: tolerate discord. Encourage direct reports to air their differences in opinion, and with passion. Difficult, contentious meetings can be a sign of progress. Tame meetings are often that way because there are important issues being avoided. Personal attacks should not be regularly employed, but people should genuinely feel free to speak without worrying about offending the sensibilities of others.
Pitfall #5: Invulnerability over Trust
Have you ever seen an executive leader surrounded by yes-men? The executive may have intentionally surrounded himself with those who agree with him, but the more likely culprit is that his people are hesitant to challenge his ideas or initiatives.
Even if the executive is able to overcome Pitfall #4 and encourage healthy conflict, their people may be unwilling to participate. This occurs due to a lack of assurance and can be the fault of the executive choosing invulnerability over trust.
Most people have a difficult time being vulnerable. Vulnerability is oft-mistaken for weakness, and an executive might worry that having their ideas challenged weakens [3] their credibility.
No one loves admitting to being wrong. However, a great executive doesn’t lose face when she is wrong because she knows who she is, why she is in her position, and that the success of the organization is far more important than personal pride.
Great executives are open with their team when they find themselves to be wrong, and are therefore willing to trust their people enough to show some vulnerability.
In return for this trust, subordinates will be more open to showing disagreement, advocating for what they think is right. They will also have their executive’s back.
Advice: Actively encourage your people to challenge your ideas. Trust them with your reputation and ego. As an executive, this is the greatest level of trust that you can give. When you do this, you lead by example, and it will be reciprocated by your people with respect, honesty, and a desire to also be vulnerable amongst their peers.
TL;DR
There is a reason CEOs make so much money. If a chief executive can avoid all five of the pitfalls above then her organization will be successful unless factors truly out of their control are present.
You never know when an opportunity to take the mantle of executive leadership will present itself, but when it does you should be prepared to put the needs and goals of the organization first.
If you are in a position of executive leadership, then it is worth reflecting on the pitfalls described above and figuring out which ones may be holding both you and your organization back.
“This book provides extraordinary insight into the pitfalls that leaders face when they lose sight of the true measure of success–results. This model is required reading for my staff.” Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board and CEO, Novell
Personally, I got the opportunity to experience executive leadership when I was the president of my college dance team. My personal definition of an executive leader is “someone who has to have all of the hard conversations,” and there were a lot of them.
Had I read this book before I came to be in my position, I would’ve made it required reading for my officers. It’s short enough that I have confidence they would have read it and easy enough to digest that everyone would have taken value from it. It illustrates the pitfalls above in a much nicer format – a fable.
Thanks for reading!
Cooper