We received a call the other day from Tony, a CEO of a major oil and gas company, who shared with us that he was quite concerned about one of his key executives. He said that Frank  had been recently promoted to replace a key member of the ELT (executive leadership team) who had retired about nine months ago. He bluntly stated, “Frank doesn’t appear to be working out the way I had hoped and is quite frankly derailing! Can we explore the situation and help me better understand why some leaders derail and and some don’t? What can I do about it?”

These are not uncommon questions that are raised by our corporate clients from time to time. In our executive coaching conversation with Tony, it was noted that The Centre for Creative Leadership found that approximately 50% of high potential managers and executives derail. Contributing to this is the fact that the initial technical and problem solving skills that had fomerly served a number of these derailed leaders well now can’t be relied on to address the increased complexity of operating at a more strategic leve, nor the resulting demands placed on their leadership that are typically changing from day to day, never mind month to month, or year to year.

Further, research has indicated that those leaders who are in fact successful in their leadership roles exhibit some of the following characteristics:

1. They tend to be highly flexible and responsive to change
2. They have a powerful ability to navigate through ambiguity and complexity
3. They pick things up very quickly and in a variety of circumstances
4. They are able to coach, facilitate, coordinate and develop their teams in a variety of circumstances with many different types of people
5.  They are highly grounded, self-manage themselves and work with others well under highly stressful circumstances
6. One of their mottos is ‘Feedback is the breakfast of Champions’ and thus constantly seek it out from those all around them
7.  They are quite aware that their strengths when overused in fact become their weaknesses, and those identified become their primary focus of professional/personal development
8. They readily acknowledge and champion their people, no matter how small the contribution or how challenging the initiative(s)
9. They are able to authentically share their thoughts, feelings and wants in equal amounts with their staff, colleagues, boss(s) and customers/clients, encouraging reciprocation, and do so with a strong sense of empathy and compassion toward others

Leaders having the potential for derailment include: the overly ambitious, the perfectionist, those who go it alone, over-managing, over-loyal to the organization, those who are over-controlling and 0ver-results oriented, single minded, too focused on technical detail, unduly personable and relying solely on relationships to get things done, having excessive fire in the belly, having too many things on the go, overly dependent on others, won’t be pushed off the mark, caught up with escalating-commitment, the constant need to be right, and loves to scrap with others beyond having constructive differences. 

To avoid derailment or to rerail, the leader needs to learn thoughtfully and constructively how to develop the team; strengthen strategic thinking and decision making; clarify specific expectations around deliverables and follow up; be self-aware and self manage under stress while at the same time being empathetic towards others; creating the right balance between collaboration, independent action and delegation; manage strategic alliances, assure functional strategic alignment and effectively manage differences vertically and horizontally. 

What’s been your experience? What have you learned as result and what did you do with it? What have you done with these insights? We would love to hear your thoughts and feelings on the subject. Take care.

Any transition to a new role, while exciting and an acknowledgement of what the organization thinks of us, is a time of anxiety for the newly transitioning leader.

A few of the common errors of a new role leader include trying to do too much too soon, failure to understand the de facto culture/sub culture, and/or misinterpreting the expectations of their superior. Danger lurks ahead….. in the form of mistrust by others, leader fatigue, compounding anxiety with over preparation, and creation of an unsafe environment for employees. As stress intensifies for the new role leader, can you really be making the best decisions for the organization as a whole, your team and yourself?

A recent research article from the University of Washington reported the findings of imposing stress on rats. It took only one uncontrollable stressful episode to greatly effect the behavior of a rat. It actually took the rat several days to recover from the effects of the stressor and return to normal decision making ability. The learning of the stressed rat control group was delayed. As well, this group was unable to readily adjust to alterations made in the imposed stress exercise. Stress altered the ability to learn, the ability to remain agile, and the ability to make decisions. How does this convert to humans? Well, the scientific community has been using rats as study participants for years…there must be something to their selection.

As I look to newly transitioning leaders whom I have coached over the past 5 years, I relate to the news of the above study. Stress has a tremendous effect on performance levels and at a time when a leader is under the microscope and readily judged by others. Clients have shared with me how this has manifested for them and projected in all areas of their life. Many suffer from extreme sleep disturbances and/ or dietary challenges.

I have worked with leaders who admitted that they had hardly slept in two months and leaders who existed on a pop and pizza diet. It is rewarding as a coach to support leaders in these circumstances and be part of the process that allows them to gain back a feeling of balance and control……rewarding them with restful nights rather than a continuum of wide eyed 3 AM note taking sessions. With invested and targeted support, these leaders can bring about greater contribution to the organization in a shortened time frame as they learn to manage their stress, embrace the transition, garner early credibility and move powerfully forward with their leadership.

What is the cost to an organization of not readily investing in the transitioning new role leader? As this is an area of continued research for me I repeatedly see transitioning phases of 14 – 24 months in executive level roles. More complex portfolios can exceed this timeframe. This is not just about the leader’s transition. One must take into consideration the transitional impact on those who surround the leader and the cost to the organization when their performance falters as a result of how the new role leader shows up for others.

What is your personal experience in a recent transition, either as the leader or as a direct report to a newly transitioning leader? While you are drinking from a fire hose, what soothing techniques have you found that help to manage anxiety and stress for you? In hindsight, how do you feel your decision making during a recent leadership transition may have been impaired?

“So how stressful is it for an executive who’s responsible for the development and implementation of an organization’s strategic plan?” This was a provocative question that clearly showed this student was thinking bigger than the subject I was teaching at hand. In response I recalled some work that I had been leading as the Vice President of Human Resources and Strategic Management with a large tertiary care hospital earlier in my career. It involved partnering with Dr. Dave Hitchin, a former professor[1] of mine, a faculty member with the School of Business and a member of the Master of Science in Organization Development Program, at Pepperdine University at the time.

In one of our many discussions while at the professor’s home in Sun Valley, Idaho, he mentioned that in doing this work over the years he had observed a number of the senior executives he had the good fortune to work with who had passed away unexpectedly. Of course I was curious about this interesting observation and I was particularly curious about the issue of executives providing strategic leadership within their organizations and the enormous stress that is a part of that journey.

Dave then shared that he was working on a concept with his wife Jill at the time that he felt would be of value to his executive clients. Not only did it speak to the related issue of stress as executives engaged in developing and leading strategic change within their organizations, but also provided a model for them to consider in the thinking and behavior necessary to better achieve and sustain healthier balance in their work and personal lives. He referred to it as ‘Middlaning’.

In this model work was viewed as a three lane highway. He referred to the inside lane as the ‘fast lane’. This was where you put the pedal-to-the-medal so to speak. Of course, it can be absolutely essential at times, but it should be engaged in by exception only, not as a general way of operating. Typical types of behavior involves going in extremely early every day, pushing it hard throughout the day, rarely ever taking meaningful breaks, staying into the very late evening hours to get that all important report out, financials analyzed, proposal prepared, presentation drafted, negotiations completed, etc. I’m sure many of you reading this can think of a long list of other urgent concerns that always need addressing. Unfortunately, this is typical of executives, managers and professionals who live to work, versus the rest of people who normally work to live. Now if you stayed in the fast lane on an ongoing basis, it wasn’t if you were going to crash and burn, it was when you would hit the wall. Further, this could very well lead up to eventual burn out, and yes, possibly death. When I thought about this, and I still do, I can recall a significant number of associates that I’ve worked with in the ‘C-Suite’ over the years who are no longer with us because of just these circumstances.

Guess what lane most organizations want their leaders, and often their employees in general, to work in. Yes, the fastlane! They don’t intentionally have the foregoing consequences in mind and, at times, even express in their own way that the that the fast lane is not a healthy place to stay.  But watch what actually happens if the executive tries to work toward more balance in his/her work and life. Out come the organizational antibodies that try to get rid of any behavior that actually involves work/life balance or seeks to minimize it.

Next is the middle-lane. This lane is a healthy and productive one to travel in.  As opposed to the peddle-to-the-metal approach of the fast lane, here you keep a good healthy speed and a solid, productive momentum. Give or take a few clicks either way, in this lane you will successfully achieve planned intentions, on time, within the resources allocated, fully meeting and even exeeding standards of performance, producing high employee and customer satisfaction (the Top Line), and often beating revenue and cost targets (Top Line). The Middle-Lane should never be confused with the Slow Lane which has a totally different purpose.

Oh, the Slow Lane. Perhaps a bit of a misnomer, but essentially it means going to work at a reasonably appropriate time and taking healthy breaks or time outs throughout the day so that you remain maximally productive. It includes taking time for lunch, either by oneself or as an opportunity to engage in relationship building with key others. It means leaving at a reasonable time at the end of the day or going home to be with your loved ones. Not taking work with you (unless you happen to be temporarily in the fast lane). It means taking the weekends off for you to be with your family and friends. It means taking your scheduled vacations, even stat holidays. The whole purpose here is for you to live the life that you’re working to create and enjoy. These are critical opportunities for you to regenerate you batteries. Otherwise, if you don’t do these things you will eventually end up being no good to yourself, your family and or to the organization over the intermediate to long term. But many of us learn the hard way, and often too late.

Is Middlaning easy? I would love to hear your experience, thoughts and wisdom on the subject. What does better look like for you? What are the consequences of not addressing and facing up to this? What’s in the payoff of dealing with it? What prevents you from addressing the matter? Have fun with this and I look forward to hearing from you!