Transition is more important than promotion

To help a person from being a functional executive to the overall leadership position there must be a properly structured development plan

We see very often managers get promoted to higher positions because they have been excellent performers, and then they begin to fail, especially when they reach higher positions in the organisation. 

For instance, we have seen very good general managers or even chief operations officers fail when they become CEOs. I think this is because more of their inability to take the transition from the previous job rather than not having the required competencies for the new job.  This can be seen not only in the business world but in other fields as well.

In a person’s career one passes through several stages. First, they must work as a trainee, learn, and perform well as an individual contributor. Then comes the stage of delivering as a member of a team. Once a person becomes a leader of a division or a department or a function then that person’s results depend more on the result of others. 

At a higher level they must focus more on organisational level strategically, balancing all stake holders, keep a long-term view while managing the near term, etc. Unless a person learns the key success factors of each of this stage then they tend to fail.

If a person has the desire to reach higher levels in an organisation, I advise them to practice 3 Cs:

1. Be Conversant with the other areas of the business beyond one’s own functional area. 

2. Be Concerned about the impact the activities of your own function with that of other functions.

3. Contribute – during various deliberations try to contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way from your point of view without confining only to your professional domain.

Practicing the three Cs will help one move from a functional expert to a real member of the executive team.

To help a person from being a functional executive to the overall leadership position there must be a properly structured development plan. The person should take a self-interest and develop those capabilities and the supervising leadership also must create the conducive environment to facilitate the transition. It is more than familiarising in the work. As one reaches higher levels there is more unstructured, unfamiliar situations than before. Thus, what is more important is the development of the right mindset.

Often highly successful operational heads fail to let go of that operational mindset. That is what they are familiar with. Because of this they fail to take the big picture view. They tend to defend their past functionality in the leadership position or approach the entire organisation’s issues from that mind set. Their time is spent more on getting involved with those operational type issues rather than system wide changes needed to take the organisation move forward.

It is very common to see them acting as the representative of the entire work force or a segment of the employees when being challenged the status quo. Thus, they fail to bring in sweeping changes needed to improve the organisation.

Many of them become prisoners of the past organisational knowledge. They tend to believe that certain organisational practices are so ingrained and cannot be changed. In some instances, the contrary is true. The new generation of employees who in the organisation may be ready for the change but the leader who has come from the system believes it is not possible.

Thus, once a person moves to the leadership position of the organisation, that person must be capable of STOPPING a lot of things more than starting to do new things. Stopping past practices that hinders the required leadership behaviours is more difficult than starting new activities because the habits give a false sense of comfort.

If a CEO successor gets to present business results and respond to questions from the board while the current CEO is at the meeting that can be a very good way to help the potential successor to develop. This process should begin at least one year before taking over the position. This will build confidence, and more importantly attune the person’s thinking to the perspective of the other stakeholders. This also gives the directors the opportunity to get to know the person which is very useful.

(Deepal Sooriyaarachchi is a Management Consultant and an Accredited Master Coach and Mentor with over four decades of industry experience, and more than fifteen years of that at leading boards as a director. He can be contacted by [email protected])