I’ve had three conversations in the last few weeks with the kind of people you wish you had on your team. These are individuals who have a good, solid track record of contribution and who are seen as leaders by their peers.
In fact, you do have them on your team. They are bright, talented, and likely appear on your High Potential’s list.
But the twist is this: they were all asking me whether they should stay or leave.
The surprising thing is that they all had worked hard to get leadership positions for significant work in their firms. Things like building new products, implementing new technologies and opening new geographies.
Why were they thinking about leaving? The short answer is that they feel like things have shifted and they have lost their mojo. This is not really the case, but their perspective is very real.
I’ve seen this play out again and again…
There is a pattern in complex organizations. With challenges coming at the C-Suite faster than ever, they are betting on their up-and-coming middle leaders to carry them to a new place.
It goes something like this:
- Act I: There is a big offsite meeting, a piece of insight is found, stretch goals are determined and the mid/senior leader gets a juicy project.
- Act II: The C-Suite team gets very involved with something new – something like a substantial new product line, an acquisition or a geographic expansion. These all-consuming activities suck the coaching time right out of their calendars.
- Act III: The middle leader is left to lead the stretch project they have been assigned with very little guidance and sponsorship. In the meantime, it has become their signature contribution and they become deeply and personally invested in it.
- Act IV: Since they are now shifting for themselves, they reach across to their operational peers and get a very frosty reception. I have described in articles (here, here and here) just how challenging it is to bridge emergent projects across the operations gap. Leaders then develop deep doubt about their contribution, and by attribution, themselves.
- Act V: Sensing that they are capable of so much more, the path of least resistance is to start clicking on those enticing job messages on LinkedIn.
While each of these leaders is winsome, engaged and has a great career in front of them, this common scenario makes them feel disconnected from their vertical leader and unsupported by their peer group.
Up to this point in their career, they have been able to push through resistance successfully. Finding that difficult now, it leads to a feeling of “imposter syndrome,” which after a short period of self-doubt, makes them feel as if they’re in the wrong spot in the firm.
The Risk of “Move the Needle” People in a Protectively-Managed World
In mature firms, the currency of leadership is control. Control of budget. Control of resource. Control of management’s attention.
In these situations, what we call “protective” management becomes subtly installed, where identification with their tribe has become more powerful than serving the external client’s mission. These leaders have been given a leadership charter to restore the focus to the customer.
When you reach across the firm, you need to be able to use new skills and wisdom to gain the influence to restore focus on the client.
The Way to Open the Door
There are three ways to get after this:
- Have the conversation early. Recognizing that there are universal patterns allows the emerging leader and their sponsor to have a robust conversation when the project is kicked off – giving them insight into the resistance that will inevitably come. This ensures that the team has clear communications protocols for when (not if) they hit a significant barrier.
- Provide resources so leaders have insight into how to identify the pattern and what to do when it presents itself. Provide training and coaching to identify and take positive proactive steps to engage and seek a win/win to work through the operations challenges. Being able to quickly develop a game plan that restores the momentum is where the important application work gets done.
- Keep the senior leader connection robust. Leading cross-functional teams is some of the most difficult developmental work a leader can take on. When I work with groups, we set up short weekly check-ins that are initiated by senior leaders with their Growth Leaders. Both the Senior Leader and the Growth Leader are always surprised by how much can be accomplished in a well-structured, 15-minute session.
The Way to Keep the Fire Burning
Pro-tip: be sure to ask about team dynamics no matter how short your update meeting is. It’s a nice, low stakes ask that can save you time, money and resources in finding and integrating a new leader.
If you are a senior leader who would like to build agility and resilience of your mid-leader team, we should talk. Learning the four essential capacities of Growth Leadership, and then skillfully applying them, will help your emergent leaders avoid the zone of confusion entirely.
If you’d like to have a conversation, please call me at (847) 651-1014 or set up a time to talk by using this link.
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