The Executive Coach

Do you want to fast track your career to the C Suite?

Recently, I wrote about one of my senior clients who got passed up for the CEO position. He is now building his track record that should lead him to the C Suite.

C Level positions are few and far between. When C Level positions do open up in your organization or in other organizations, you need to be a natural ‘fit’ for the position, hence the track record. Along with the track record, if you have been following my previous blogs, you will know that I am always encouraging you to expand your network and visibility outside of your department, division, company, industry or country.

Currently, my research and hundreds of interviews reveal that the ten best career stepping stones to help get you to the C Suite are to take the lead in:
1. Helping your organization expand globally (bonus points for BRICK – Brazil, Russia, India, China or S. Korea)
2. Supply chain (cost reduction, efficiency improvements and resource securing)
3. Global strategic alliances
4. Sustainability, Governance and Ethics
5. A merger, acquisition or major change initiative
6. Bold new initiatives with the potential to completely change the way that business is currently done
7. Beacon for top talent (recruit, retain and develop the stars)
8. Risk management (financial, reputation, liability, etc.)
9. Financial stewardship (SOX, Basil, etc.)
10. Any project that contributes the largest share of revenues

Putting It Into Action:
Pick one of the areas mentioned above and put together a strategic plan with weekly targets to ensure that you get to take a leadership role sooner rather than later. After you obtain a comfort level with the new role, report what you are doing, how you are doing and what the impact is to the organization to the most senior members of the executive team or any Board Members that you may know.

With you along the path towards success,
Joseph

Do you agree that despite best intentions, ‘stuff’ happens?

Our external environment, despite our best efforts is largely uncontrollable. While it is true that we can forecast different scenarios and attach probabilities, we can not control what gets done to us and our organizations.

The key in this environment is to be non-controlling, non-accusational and flexible. You and your team must accept that change is inevitable and that there will hopefully be more good than not. The one choice that you have complete control over is your attitude or your reaction to what happens to us. If your emotions and reactions are the only thing you can control – why do we so often ‘give them up’ by showing hatred, jealousy, anger or attaching blame?

Have you ever met people who seem upset at the world because of what has been ‘done’ to them? How do they affect people around them? What happens to everyone’s energy level around them? It becomes quickly evident to all of us that they carry around their past and that their attitudes cloud their judgment, which often leads to a predisposition to react in a very defensive or quickly aggressive manner. These individuals need to let go of the past and the feeling that things are being done to them as if there was some master plan to ‘get’ them.

Putting It Into Action:
Accept first that you have little influence on what happens to you and your organization from the external world. Next, anticipate a worst case, likely outcome and best case scenario and compute the impact. For each scenario, practice reactions to all three possibilities; reactions should consider the impact and reaction from all stakeholders affected. Practicing possible scenarios and how you will handle them will show that you are proactive, can anticipate the future and that you behave in a consistent, positive and empathetic manner. You and your organization will gain more trust as others see you with this positive, forward looking attitude.

With you along the path towards success,
Joseph

Don’t you hate it when you get stereotyped?

Allow me to stereotype once again to add some simplicity and hopefully clarity to the illustration.

There are three types of people:

1) Those who want success
2) Those who want to help others
3) Those who want to make just enough money for themselves.

No matter what type you are, the simple things are often the most profound. In order to be successful, you must be willing to take risks. Most people don’t take risks because they are afraid of failure which usually stems from low self esteem. Low self esteem is a self defeating prophecy. Our self doubt or feeling that others don’t value us or believe in our abilities, takes us out of the game at a very early stage; before we can prove them wrong and prove ourselves right.

The reality is that the only opinion of you that matters, is your own. You must expand your self esteem and confidence through the following stages: from thinking, to knowing, to believing. Everything in life is a choice. If you choose to be successful, you will look for signs that you are right and you will fight like heck if you are doubted. If you walk around with a defeatist attitude, you will get what you seek out. There is a famous Chinese saying that goes, “I have seen the enemy, the enemy is within.”

Putting It Into Action:

Once you have worked on your own self esteem, try to assess which category people around you fall into. Assessment allows for reflection and often a deeper understanding of their motivation and perhaps fears. Deeper understanding of those around us provides us with insight on how to help them achieve greater self esteem. Their greater self esteem will hopefully lead to empowerment and improvement, which will give you a sense of satisfaction. Now that is a nice win-win that we can all use!

With you along the path towards success,
Joseph