Are you ready to launch your leadership suite?

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” – Shakespeare in Henry IV, 1597.

How prophetic the Bard of Avon was just a few centuries ago and it is highly unlikely that he attended any Ivy League school even though the venerable Oxford University did exist at that period of time.

If at all what seemed to have happened since then is that the size and weight of the crown has gone up manifold and at the same time, the number of hands that exert pressure on the crown too has gone up drastically too.

There have been many debates around the idea of leaders and leadership, and their impact on business, employees, investors, markets, customers, community etc. over centuries. The infinite number of articles on leadership and autobiographies passed on to posterity does confirm the same. Undeniably, such debates and host of research data on successful and fallen organizations and leaders have kept this subject young and contemporary. But the beauty is such that every time we analyze an occurrence of an unusual event, or a leader’s entry or exit, it provides fodder for further deep dive (e.g. the exit of Vishal Sikkha – Good, Bad Ugly  — if so, for whom?) The debate can go on and on as it happened in the case of Cyrus Mistry or Uber’s Travis Kalanick.

Combining the lessons from such overtly debated episodes (learnt wisdom) with my personal experience of partnering with various types/styles of leaders in two of the formidable formats of collective human endeavor viz. the Armed Forces and the Corporates, I wish to record a few of my learnings and observations on the subject of leadership, leaders and what it beholds to those who lead?  The roles I was in enabled me to gather a 360 degree view of Leadership Intent (the insider stuff), Action (the displayed behaviors) and Outcomes (the impact) and these impressions have also tempered my thinking on the subject and helps to broaden the perspective.

For the purposes of this article, I have taken two positions to analyze the interplay of various factors that get played out when a newly crowned king takes charge and followed it by presenting the idea of the “Leadership Suite”. The two positions are:

A. How do members of an organization view the entry of a leader to lead them?

B. What signature competencies leaders choose to demonstrate in response to the organizational context?

How do members of an organization view the entry of leader?

One of the questions that trigger great anxiety among employees during the change of guard pertains to “Will the life be same or would it be different henceforth?” The closer the change occurs, greater will be the level of anxiety. A mid-level manager will be less impacted at a CEO level change but will be more affected if the change happens at his reporting manager level. 

At a rational level, this should not be an issue, since organizations have a clear line of sight as to what, how, when to achieve the milestones and hence any change in guard should not impede the pursuit they are in to. But in real life working, it is not that easy since even a slight variation in the way things get done or in shuffling the pecking order of priorities run the risk of being seen as “massive changes”, for example, a change in the reporting format of reviews, change in work timings, work locations or improvements to the existing business processes suggested by the new leader actually become a rich fodder for lunch hall chats.

With almost all possible data of any human being available on social media, unlike a decade and half back, every impacted member of the organization has a full view to the career track of the new leader and forms an opinion even before he or she formally joins.

Perhaps this can be the hottest topic of research prior to joining of the leader, and also closely observed during the first few weeks of a leader taking the mantle. A comparison of the style they are tuned in to with the newer style is made, and many inferences and conjectures are drawn from such emotional hushed analyses.

Questions or statements such as “He was a turnaround King”, “She is great people leader”, “Listens less, directs more”, “culture can be a challenge”, “Oops , she can work for sixteen hours nonstop” etc. do the rounds for some time unless their actual experience help them to correct or modify these early prophecies. True, a style mismatch at the highest level can add great burden on the subject’s lives, both personal and work life, and many times this aspect turn to be a waterloo for the leaders. 

Very legitimate anxiety to have! Especially if their current, prior experiences are not too great to talk about, this aspect attains all the more importance. There are times leaders get branded as “soft/tough/ pragmatic/mostly rational /less emotional/quickly jumps to conclusion/ will not take up issues” etc. Such labeling may also be a reflection of the deprivation the unit has experienced and hence from their perspective, their expectation is that the new leader addresses all these deprivations in the conduct of affairs of the company. 

Once the initial anxiety settles down, employees explore the aspects of them that matches with the new leader’s wavelength. Some of the commonalities they feel happy searching for could be the alma mater, nativity of the leader, language, companies they worked together in, a common friend whom both of them know and also interests in other areas such as sports, hobbies. It’s purely an emotional perspective that offers the employees an extra ounce of safety and security. We cannot undermine the impact of these small doses of commonalities when the organization and its employees are going through a change process. 

Thus, each employee has a view and expectation from the new leader who is just crowned. The more tenured the organization, greater and more are the expectations from various groups and sub-groups that operate in the system. But the important part is that while the smart new leader can sort of figure these patterns/expectations by virtue of the rich experience he/she fetches, or basis the inputs gathered before joining,  these expectations get played out at different points  in time in different forms and shapes, making the leader’s job that much more demanding, compelling and at times unsettling.

All accomplished leaders when they make career changes are clear as to why they make the change. Equally clearer is the board which leaves no stone unturned to set their expectations clear right from hiring to joining. No wonder that the selection of leaders for such roles vary anywhere between 8 to 12 months if one goes by the best practice idea. There are just too many things at stakes for all concerned to make any error of judgment. 

As the Head of People Practices over these years, I was fortunate enough to facilitate inducting new leaders in my unit. Those were invaluable periods of learning for me personally. The amazing clarity they had as to how to get in and play was simply outstanding. While most of them did a great job at it, a few did with aplomb and composure while the others had more animated and exciting view to the transition challenge. 

While I reflected over the experiences, I could discern to some extent as to how they perceived the newer environment, made sense of the context and responded to that with their leadership beliefs and competencies. The spectrum of competencies they displayed ranged from sheer power of intellect, mastery over their domain,  stunning articulation to as simple as solid basic human values like humility, sincerity, warmth and connectedness. A few of the signature competencies they exhibited stood out, worthy of learning from. These are:

Questions like, “How this intervention will be seen?” “Does this address the core issues?” 

“Is there any unintended consequences due to this intervention?” “How do we know as to what they feel about it?” are typically asked by leaders who are high on self-awareness. Even when they are aware that they can simply roll out interventions by virtue of the authority they wield, their need to factor all possible impacts of their actions is very high. At times, they tend to take longer time to take those calls, but when they launch it, one can see the total conviction and commitment since they have factored the impact of the decision sufficiently well. They tend to seek feedback religiously and also show the moral courage to correct themselves if need be. 

A new leader, whom I worked with was taking a review of the promotion recommendations during the appraisal cycle. While I had all the data of the employees who were recommended, he stumped me when he asked me to share the list of those who had been long in the system but were not recommended for promotion by their supervisors, and all that with reasons. His reasoning was that for every one employee promoted to a new role, there are a couple of them who would miss it and we have to get facts clear and be sensitive to this aspect. I learnt a lesson on what sensitivity is all about.

Most successful leaders have a robust 360 degree perspective on organizational issues and resist the urge to dole out “best practices” before understanding the issues. A first time CEO role holder specifically requested my feedback through SMS as and when he steps more in to marketing domain, which was his core competence area. He clearly did not want to slip in to his zone of comfort and such an approach also got him the goodwill and boosted his professional image. Another leader had a practice of asking the proposer of an idea to list all others functions that may be impacted when the idea got implemented. Over a period of time, new ideas or changes proposed had a faster and smoother passage since every proposer had to recognize the impact of others and must have an answer for that. 

“Look at the long term please” is the famous statement of another CEO, who actually irritated me with one simple question in his early days of taking over. “Captain, when you and me leave this system at some point in time, will my successor be willing and able to continue this process or practice?”

Unable to bear this question for every one of my proposals, I called my mentor on this peculiar puzzle and how to handle this nagging poser. My mentor’s answer was: 

“Oh, captain, you must be happy to work with him, since such leaders are rare  to come by  these days”! 

Sooner, I realized that they don’t ordinarily do anything that is short-term and in the same breadth, sustaining in long-term is a critical “GO-NO-GO” test for them to implement a practice or a model or a new idea. 

Their genuine care for employees and reading of their emotive pulse, most times are absolutely brilliant. Though they seek the classical feedback from people to figure out employee’s disposition to certain organizational practices, they have refined higher order skills of “intuition” to spot gaps in perception and opinions. Their apparently casual corridor conversations and recognizing the subtle changes in employee’s behaviors, change in language and in energy levels are breath-taking.  Armed with this intuitive skill, they go about making improvements in the environment for the betterment of the unit. 

Smart leaders understand the power of consistency in leadership behavior as a tool to model behaviors of direct reports and hence that of the organization to weave an engaging culture. A behavior, when seen consistently by the employees, tends to get replicated, be it good or bad. The power of this competency is such that, over time, employees at all levels would get to know the exact behaviors required in various situations.

Successful leaders during transition are adept in maintaining social distance from the employees. They are there in right places at the right times like a master football player doing the role of the ‘pivot’ — at forward positions, on the flanks or deep back in the home at times. This deft skill helps them to be close when needed, abstain when the need arises and also helps them to be directive wherever needed. At times, even leaders good on many other aspects score low on this competency due to the complex situations they deal with.

Now that we have shared a few of possible aspects interplay of the minds of the employees and the leader, how are these insights and competencies are used by leaders during a leadership transition?

On the one side, there are members of the organization who have certain expectations from the new leaders, conditioned by their own experience of the organization till then and praying that the ‘demi gods’ will excel in everything they do to fulfill their expectations; on the other side, there is a new king accepting the crown with crystal clear clarity as to what the Kingmakers (the board) want from them but has very little view of the “praja”, their capabilities, competencies and expectations. 

The “Leadership Suite” is a customized Toolbox that is designed by the leaders basis their real life leadership experiences and leadership beliefs. At this level, most leaders would have it displayed from the state of “unconscious competence” if we use the four stage competency framework. It blends the leader’s cognitive skills with emotional intelligence to design various “software and hardware” to run the organizational system.

A quick assessment of the context of the organization, the way things get done here, and also about the thinking and feeling styles of the key leaders, actually gives a leader a deeper understanding of the type, method, and manner of launching his /her “leadership suite” in the new environment.

Change and the management of change

While the leaders themselves are more than aware that they are undergoing a change with the new role, their ability to perceive and understand that this is a huge change for the members also will go a long way to establish his/her credentials. 

In one of the major changes at a functional level in a MNC, the new leader in her very first introduction session fired five salvos for the others to follow. The team of senior professionals, who were her direct reports, were conditioned by a facilitative and inclusive type of an approach for years by the predecessor. They were completely stumped and most felt that the leader has not taken pains to understand them in the first place. When a few of them tried to ask questions, they were promptly put aside by the leader on the VC. One of the members cross checked her demeanor in her earlier organization which confirmed her snobbish people handling skills. The result was an exit of more than 40 percent of the team within a year of the new leader taking up the role! While the leader felt greatly thrilled at her direct way, what she failed to understand was the healthy process of team interactions the team had developed over time. 

What to change and what not to change?

Any abrupt change hinders progress! Organizations, formed as teams, work to set goals for a given period of time and like human beings will strive to minimize disturbance to its context. At the same time, competitive forces shall always disturb the equilibrium at all points of time and quite few organizations are in a perpetual transition mode! 

Thus, armed with the knowledge of the “way things get done”, the new leader can think about the ways and means of influencing the change process. The leader can also choose the way of communication  and its tonality so as to enable his direct reports to understand the compelling need for change and how that helps them and the organization in the days to come. If the leader lacks the learning of the soak-in period, he/she is bound to make errors in rushing the change and thereby retarding the progress and speed of change that was needed. 

In the same breadth, the leader can also develop an idea as to what not to change if it is delivering the objective. One leader soon after taking over wanted to increase the number of winners in a Quarterly Award Process. While the intent was noble and the idea was to create more winners and set a celebrative culture, after a few quarters, a review of the list of winners did not have the names of the consistent star performers. When their opinion was sought, it dawned that in the excitement to see more winners on the dais, they dropped the standards down by a few notch, thereby killing the intrinsic sense of achievement among the true performers.

Shaping personal behavior

This is perhaps is the single most aspect the leader can leverage to deliver high impact outcomes and drive a unit’s culture and sub-culture. If there is a compelling need to change a few things in the “way we do things”, the best person who can really show is the leader. 

A reputed organization took upon a herculean task of improving its gender mix at various levels in line with their Global People Agenda. Not an ordinary task for the unit whose life itself can be aptly described as living in the UVCA world. But a well thought out approach/process and also adopting the same drive at the highest level of management sent out a clear signal of the leadership intent and action. The outfit that was struggling to adapt to the new way, moved with greater momentum once they saw the coherence in the leadership’s words and actions.  Driving this key agenda was never a challenge since then.

Leaders can be the real agents of change if what they talk and what they do remains consistent and coherent in the eyes of the organization. Mind you, the lonely leaders at the top actually have to infer the sentiments of people on issues through proxies since employees mostly do not openly express their views in public even if the leaders at the higher levels try and reach out to as many as they can. If not for the alacrity of the leaders, such insights could be lost or distorted. 

In this VUCA world, if at all there can be one voice that could rise above the noise, one hand that could help others to wade through the clutter, and one soul that can uplift the psyche of those being led, it is unarguably that of the Leaders, though they may be still battling the weight the crown exerts on their heads.

Unlike in the Armed Forces where leaders are seen as almost like the real Gods, in the modern VUCA world, leaders are actually seen as “demi-Gods” and the belief and trust that the demi god’s shall unfailingly fulfill all the needs and expectations of all the stakeholders also exerts huge pressure on the leader. While all can aspire to become demi-gods in our own ways, to arrive there, one needs a fair degree of balance between cognitive and emotive skills. If leaders tend to assume that their position confers power to them and hence people may simply follow, then it’s time they need to correct this thinking. In an ever-changing world where flow and fluidity forms the basis for any action and counter-action as opposed to consistency and predictability, the leaders will always be under scrutiny and living up to it can be an imposing challenge unless he or she understands the foreground and background of the organization and perfect their “leadership suite”.