CEOs’ Advice on Overcoming Leadership Uncertainty
Leadership isn’t easy. Even the best leaders make mistakes, get stuck and struggle to find the right answer at times. And some prominent leaders seem successful, but make serious mistakes that lead to their downfalls and harm the organizations they headed up.When you’re struggling to make a decision or to find confidence in yourself as a leader, it can help to read about how those at the top have tackled similar problems and have made mistakes on the way to success. Consider these words of wisdom and stories of strong leadership CEOs have shared recently.GE’s Jeff Immelt on Digitizing in the Industrial Space. McKinsey & Company: “We have probably hired, since we started this, a couple thousand data scientists and people like that. That’s going to continue to grow and multiply. What we’ve found is we’ve got to hire new product managers, different kinds of commercial people. It’s going to be in the thousands. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to blend them with the GE team, and then we’re going to recruit differently. When we go to college campuses, we’re going to look for different skills. We’re going to put them in different training programs. It’s a combination of we’ve got to bring our culture along, but that’s not enough. We’ve got to bring thousands of people in from the outside. That’s the only way we’re going to get there fast enough. This is something I got wrong. I thought it was all about technology. I thought if we hired a couple thousand technology people, if we upgraded our software, things like that, that was it. I was wrong. Product managers have to be different; salespeople have to be different; on-site support has to be different. We’ve had to drill and change a lot about the company. And I just think it’s infecting everything we do. It’s infecting our own IT. It’s infecting our own manufacturing plants. It’s infected everything we’re doing, I think in a positive way.”Women Leaders Speak: Q&A with Sharon Napier, CEO, Partners + Napier. The Huffington Post: “Everyone has faced moments of uncertainty in their careers. When I'm stuck on a decision, I need to think differently, come up with new options and be open to them. To do this, I try to stop thinking and settle my mind by removing myself from the situation. I can't sit and stew about it. I'll go for a bike ride or a run, or go for a walk with my husband. I focus more on my breath and my physical movement. When I start moving, I usually arrive at my best plan on how to move forward. I think getting stuck happens to everyone, but remaining there is a choice.”No, It Doesn’t Really “Pay to Be a Jerk”. LinkedIn: “Earlier this year, the Atlantic Monthly published a long provocative piece on ‘Why it Pays to Be a Jerk.’ Breathlessly, the author claims, ‘new research confirms what they say about nice guys.’ As I begin another year of teaching tomorrow’s business leaders at the Stanford Business School, I find myself wondering anew why this cynical conventional ‘wisdom’ keeps getting trotted out….From my perch, this advice is nonsense, especially if you care about long-term results, or want to recruit and retain knowledge workers in the 21st century. Machiavellian machinations seem to be a favorite of coaching ‘heroes’ in sports. There’s Bobby Knight in basketball, whose outrageous remarks at [Indiana University] – as well as such antics as choking a player and tossing a chair across the court – got him fired. Billy Martin, the manager of the New York Yankees fired five different times, was just as well known for bar fights and alienating players. Woody Hayes, Ohio State’s Patton-like football coach, was finally sacked after he punched a player. Each of these leaders had some measure of success for some period of time, but they all ultimately damaged the organizations they represented.’”3 Battle-Tested Leadership Tips I Learned From a Four-Star General. Inc.: “Speak Calmly. Unlike so many of the war heroes we see on the big screen, the General is very mild-mannered. He rarely raises his voice, even when it's clear he's upset. But when he does raise his voice even just an octave, it resonates very clearly. Because he's so even-keeled most of the time, any slight deviation on his part commands attention. That's taught me that my ability as a leader to make an impact has nothing to do with how loud I yell. In fact, yelling at people is completely counterproductive: the more you do that, the more people will avoid you.”Are You Exhibiting The Value That You Place In Your Employees? ERE Media: “When your company has truly great employees, those workers carry value that simply cannot be replaced or quantified in an exchange. They carry deep institutional knowledge of the organization. They have extensive product knowledge, and process knowledge. They hold client relationships that have been built over many years. They carry tremendous experience on what has worked and what hasn’t worked for the company in the past. And, great employees have camaraderie and influence with their co-workers, which when lost, has an impact on the corporate culture.”Need help overcoming leadership uncertainty at your organization? Contact us to learn about leadership development and coaching opportunities.
Success Labs is a leadership development and management consulting firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.
