Leading for the Next Act

The article titled “Leading for the Next Act: Why CEOs Must Evolve or Step Aside“ published in Knowledge@Wharton provides an interesting discussion concerning the need for leaders to change their leadership style to fit that challenges facing their organisations.

“The secret to long-term CEO success, suggests David Nadler, a consultant to boards and senior executives, is conceiving of a CEO’s tenure as a performance with a series of distinct acts. ‘Each act requires the CEO to lead, think and behave in fundamentally different ways. The successful ones are those who are able to make the transitions,’ Nadler said during his presentation at the 11^th annual Wharton Leadership Conference, sponsored by the Center for Leadership and Change Management, the Center for Human Resources and Wharton Executive Education…… “The problem comes after the CEO solves that first issue; then it is act two and something else is needed,” he says. Many CEOs fail because of what Nadler terms ’success syndrome,’ that is, codifying a certain way of doing things, and then charging ahead with the old game plan no matter how the context has changed…… What leaders who successfully transition from one act to the next share is an awareness of what kind of leadership is required at the right moment — and they don’t rest on their laurels.”

This is a common leadership challenge, success can be a leaders worst enemy. Success often deceives leaders, causing them to think they have it “all figured out”, it creates pride and fuels ego’s, creating the perfect cocktail for future failure….

“‘They fail to recognize that things are changing, and often, they are unable to assess their own capabilities.’ With these blind spots in place, the CEOs continue to press ahead, widening the gap between their vision and the company’s reality. ‘We call that ‘the death spiral,’ said Nadler…. Feeding into this negative cycle is the hard fact that CEOs may not hear frank words from their insular circle of advisors — or care to listen when the truth is spoken. ‘Normally we think of learning-disabled kids, but I see learning-disable executives, who lack the ability to take in new information and determine the insider implications for it.’”

When leaders are not open to feedback from the business environment and people around them, they cannot adapt to the changing business context, resulting in failure. I’ve often observed how executive will choose to rationalize and defend deteriorating results, rather than looking inward to examine the appropriateness of their leadership style…..

“Part of the CEO’s task, then, is to ruthlessly assess him or herself as the business context changes. ‘Do I have an understanding of what’s needed now in terms of new leadership requirements? Do I have a sense of my own leadership capabilities? Can I understand the gap between what’s required by the new situation and what I’m capable of doing?’”

For successful leaders this is a whole lot more difficult than it seems! A critical leadership capability is the ability to face reality. As Jack Welch says “face reality as it is, not as it was nor as you wish it were“. To me, facing reality means having NO ILLUSIONS, to focus on outcomes and to become more self-aware.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Reality, Evolve, Change, Deception, Self-Awareness, CEO, Management, Business, Success, Failure, Transition

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Tagged as: Context, Leadership Practices, Personal Leadership, Reality, Self-Awareness, Sensemaking