The Executive Coach

Have you ever been on 'the tube', aka subway, in London, England? The Mind the Gap signs are everywhere.

Do you know what competencies are?

Competencies are agreed upon behaviours between Human Resources or The Board and the individual that would signal that a particular desired skill is being met on a consistent basis.

The American Management Association and the HR Institute conducted an extensive Leadership study in 2005 that revealed the following as the top desired leadership competencies:

1) Strategy development
2) Communication skills
3) Developing leaders
4) Hiring talent
5) Fostering creativity and innovation
6) Driving for results/satisfaction
7) Know the organization
8) Role Model for values
9) Ethical behaviour
10) Know the industry, government, associations
11) Building internal relations
12) Aligning organization with the market/stakeholders

Putting It Into Action:
If your organization had to post the CEO position tomorrow, what would the required leadership competencies look like? Determine how many of those competencies you already possess and you would rate as highly effective. Identify what behaviours you can begin doing today to diminish your leadership competencies gap.

With you along the path towards success,
Joseph

So you want to be a leader?

Chances are that the organization that you are working for, or do work for, has had a leadership shuffle in recent years.

Consulting firm Booze Allen conducted a 2005 study of the 2500 largest publicly traded firms in the global markets. They compared turnover and tenure of CEOs compared to 1995 and found the following:

1) CEO Turnover rates were up 300%
2) CEOs were getting younger, the average age dropped to 52 from 56
3) CEOs had 4 less years of experience, down to 24 years
4) CEOs had on average 5 prior jobs, down from 5.8
5) CEO tenure at the firm that they led was down more than 5 years to 15
6) Average tenure as the CEO dropped to 6.6 years from 8.8 years
7) CFO, COO and other C-Level positions had very similar results to those of the CEO

Most of the CEOs lost their positions because they missed targets or they endangered or embarrassed the organization. Think of the countless companies that were lead stories in the newspapers for all the wrong reasons.

Putting It Into Action:
Determine your Executive Leadership’s greatest challenges to meeting their targets. If you have been at the organization longer than the CEO, what wisdom can you share? Identify what you can begin doing today to signal to your leaders that you can help remove that target on their back.

With you along the path towards success,
Joseph

Do you want to be a leader? Maybe you are already a leader and are wondering, “Why the heck is it so difficult?”

When I look for answers, I look to personal observation and secondary research.

A 2005 study of 1600+ North American managers and leaders from all sectors was conducted by the American Management Association. Respondents were asked what they anticipated to be the greatest leadership challenges for the coming ten years. The top ten challenges were:
1) Increased global competition
2) Focus on the customer
3) Operating efficiency
4) Accelerating pace of change
5) Need for innovation
6) Increased government regulations
7) Talent retention
8) Product/service quality
9) Mergers & Acquisitions
10) Information Technology

Putting It Into Action:
Determine your organization’s or clients’ top three leadership challenges. Based on your assessment of your strengths, identify what you can begin doing today to signal to your leaders or clients that you can help solve their leadership challenges.

With you along the path towards success,
Joseph

How do you categorize leaders?

We all define our leaders in different ways. Based on my years of experience, I group leaders into three categories:
1) Thought Leaders – visionaries and creative thinkers, blue sky type
2) Results Leaders – get things done, demonstrate initiative, use technical or management expertise, hands on type
3) Relationship Leaders – effective collaborators, attract and develop talent, leverage relationships, influence and negotiate effectively, team builder type

Organizations and their stakeholders need all three types of leaders. The culture of your organization and the environment in which it operates will determine what mix of the three types is required for continued success. Assess your organization, determine what leadership types are evident and either develop your leadership style to match or contrast. The style you choose should depend on the overall strategy of the firm and where it is heading in the future.

My observation is that The Relationship Leader is perhaps the most valuable leadership type today. Today’s leaders need to win the global War for Talent and they need to collaborate across departments, across cultures, across borders and outside of our organizations.

Putting It Into Action:
Determine who is an effective Relationship Leader. Then, find a way to study them and be more like them. If possible, get to know them and turn it into a mentoring relationship. If mentoring is not your thing, hire an Executive Coach to help you develop into one of the leadership types.

With you along the path towards success,
Joseph