At a senior level, your leaders have the ability to provide goodwill or destruction.
I have to credit a dear friend and thought partner of mine who I'll call out as RH. In a recent conversation, RH and I were chatting about the value of the work we do at Authentically EC in helping bring out the best in leaders. As a CEO himself who has experienced programs with me, he knows what's possible and how important your mindset and well-being truly are when it comes to leadership.
Given his extensive career in various businesses, RH, like me, has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in leaders. At the most senior levels of an organization you add fire or grace, chaos or calm, inspiration or limitation.
Your performance in an executive role is largely determined by who you're driven to be on the inside. Of course you'll be measured by growth in revenue, innovation in product or service offerings, P&L, shareholder sentiment, earnings and a number of other tangible factors. After all you have a company to run. But your leadership of all the people in your organization who are contributing to those factors is the foundation of the company's success.
Businesses have a "soul" in the sense they are an entity with an energy about them. I believe the bigger the company the more that soul gets drowned out by the noise. Too many egos, not enough heart; too much manipulation or force, not enough purpose or passion. The entity itself becomes a self-preserving mechanism rather than a self-actualizing one. It's like the eagerness to learn, grow, evolve, and serve gets taken over by anxiousness to compete, beat, win, and tout.
That's what happens when we throw money at anything and everyone thinking that it gets us ahead and/or solves problems. Last I checked you cannot buy or sell purpose, passion, love or happiness. People problems in a company need real humans to work through them. No, problems don't go away on their own or because money is thrown at them. Often times it takes expert guidance for someone to move out of their own way and stop hindering the organization.
As Wendy Rhodes said in Billions, "It's not about comp. It's about value - mind and growth. As in whether I'm still growing." If your leaders and people aren't growing, they're going to leave. Plain and simple. They may see a cap on their possible career trajectory, they may feel stifled under a certain leader, they may feel there are no other opportunities in the company. These are what they'll point to and yet underneath it all, they just don't see how they can possibly grow as a human in your company.
Consider this: How would you define the soul of your company? What type of energy do your employees experience while working there? How about your clients, what type of energy do they experience and how would they describe your company?
Unlocking a new edge in your business (or yourself) and strengthening performance is the result of being more comfortable in your skin. As a senior leader, the more self-knowledge and self-regulation you maintain the more aligned you are with your work, people, and soul of the company.
This is where organic inspiration and exemplary leadership starts to shine. It can be a burden for some to take on this responsibility but that's a matter of perspective. It can just as easily be an opportunity for others. Let's get real, leadership of today and the future is a totally different ball game than that of the 90s and 2000s. The sooner today's leaders take this seriously and do what it takes to drive performance and change, the sooner they'll notice the positive impact.
A major aspect of my work as an Executive Partner with my corporate clients is to take the burden off of the CEO (or senior executives) to grow their leaders. Can you say that you know human behavior tools and mindset techniques to bring out the best in someone? Likely not, and that's okay. It's not your business nor passion, but it is mine.
Some of my clients deem me the Wendy Rhodes in their organization which makes me chuckle. I get so deeply entrenched with their leaders and business. In this relationship we're all partnered in creating a better, more successful environment for all each and every day. If you're this senior executive (or you know someone that is) send this along to them. Now is an opportunistic time to collaborate with Authentically EC.
Change is inevitable, growth is optional. What's your choice?
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