Are You Director Material? – A Follow Up

Last month we provided a checklist on being an effective director. This turned out to be one of the most popular articles we have published, with lots of comment from readers. This got us thinking – why? Below we’ve pulled together the comments and synthesized them with our own views into 6 major themes:

1. The first and obvious point is there is a lot of ambition to become a director. It’s still seen as a real career aiming point, even though the rewards are not always obvious and the legal liabilities onerous.
2. ‘I wanted to test my director against your checklist’. For many managers they do no hold their Director in very high esteem, our summary has given form to their frustrations.
3. It seems that for some, the Director role is a function of position not action. The objective of becoming a Director has been achieved, that in itself is enough for some and their direct reports see it clearly.
4. We also learned that for many Directors there is no clear mandate between their functional role and that of being a Director. Some were offered IOD training but many were not. As you might expect, this issue was more prevalent in Private, rather than PLC organisations
5. Another common issue in Private, proprietor-led companies is the promoted, loyal employee problem. Often a successful, long standing relationship between an owner and key lieutenant is ‘rewarded’ with a directorship. The problem is the relationship doesn’t change, the new Director now having the right to see everything but feels embarrassed to ask, the owner carrying on as before, perhaps still with too much informality around procedure and board process. This problem can be especially acute when the employee director joins a board of family/shareholder directors.
6. The long ago promoted Director who acts as an obstacle to progress. Experience is only of any value if it is leveraged effectively. If not, experience can be as much a liability as asset. It is critical Directors stay up to date and recognise their previous experience is a wasting, not growing asset. In this world of discontinuous change, insight and innovation are much more significant attributes for a director to have than just rear-view mirror experiences.

The major learn we have got from this thread of conversation is that the boardroom is rightly seen as a major driver of competitive advantage, but for many organisations they need to do much better.

If you would like to discuss you Board or top team development we’d be delighted to assist please contact us.

Being Trusted – Perhaps The Critical Requirement For Today’s Leaders

All organisations are having to change, at a faster pace and in more radical ways than ever before.

This puts the requirement for leadership at a premium, where decisive, inspirational action from those in positions of power and influence is obvious and value-adding. The problem is many people who need to implement these different and challenging requirements look at their leaders with a crooked eye, thinking ‘Why should we follow you?’, ‘We don’t really trust you’.

With trust a leader can achieve much more, without it they will struggle to do more than exhort people to do better. Where does trust come from? To help clarify your own thinking we have put together a summary of the behaviours that stimulate feelings of trustworthiness.

1. Consistent - You need to behave in ways that allow people to feel they always know where you’re coming from. People would prefer someone who is autocratic all the time to someone who flip-flops between being controlling one minute and laissez-faire the next.
2. Fair - You cannot have favourites, or be mercurial in your decision making. People need to see you are objective and even-handed in all your dealings with others.
3. Reliable - Always do what you say you will do, never over-promise and under-deliver.
4. Values Driven - People need to see what you stand for through your dealings with others.
5. Discreet - You are you good with other peoples’ confidences.
6. Straight-forward - Effective leaders need to be political to some extent, but trusted ones are only political in the positive sense of being in tune with the hidden agendas and underlying group dynamics, not manipulating, double-dealing and back stabbing.
7. Supportive - You not only help people with work related issues but offer broader support when needed
8. Tough - You will say the (very) difficult stuff even when it makes you unpopular. You are not interested in how many Christmas cards you get, only in being effective and increasing the effectiveness of those around you.
9. Human - People relate to you because you have empathy for their position, and you don’t put yourself on a pedestal.

These attributes are in no order of importance, and cannot be adopted as a short-cut to trustworthiness. People have got to have belief in your sincerity.

Predaptive work extensively in coaching managers to become more effective leaders. If you would like to find out more, please contact us.

Are You Striking The Right Leadership Balance?

When times are tough people look for leaders to give them confidence and hope like never before. When the route to take isn’t clear, having confidence that someone in the team, the department or the organisation knows where they’re going makes it easy to follow. When people are behaving strangely in situations that they’ve never faced before it’s reassuring for others to know that there’s someone who is behaving in the way they not only expect, but they’d like to behave themselves.

Being a leader in tough times is no different than being a good leader in the boom times. Leaders strike a balance between confidence and empathy, they are able to clearly articulate their vision of what the future should look like, but are not so blinkered that they won’t listen to input from others or take account of a changing context. They are able to drive people forward with enthusiasm and motivate them to higher performance without pushing them into an uncomfortable stress zone.

Having one leader in an organisation is better than none, but having an organised and synergistic leadership team leads to sustainable higher performance. Unfortunately, much leadership reading and theorising focuses on the one transformational leader rather than the transformational leadership team. Having a group who respect and trust each other enough to have open discussions and to challenge the views and actions of others ensures better leadership, more robust decision making and effective implementation.

Finding the right balance at the right time isn’t easy, but Predaptive work with leaders to help them be more effective individually and to make a really positive impact as a high performing, functional leadership team. To find out more about how Predaptive can help your leaders to make a bigger impact contact us.