LEADING IN THE TRENCHES REALITY CHECK #1
There is only one solution—do the work to uncover the leader in yourself.
We often see high potential young executives lose their way in their career and life, not dissimilar to CEO succession candidates who freeze while in reach of the top job. The reason is the same: they lack solid foundations as a leader, and the cracks becomes a fault-line when the pressure spikes.
High potentials are deemed to have the potential to hold successively bigger leadership positions in their organization, and hence given the opportunities and resources to do so. They usually hail from top schools and/or are selected into management trainee programs because of their intellectual smarts and good grades. The first few years at a new position tend to be smoother-sailing. They go through set rotations and exposure to senior management. However, the advantages come to an end at some point.
“I realised I am not on the fast track any more, but don’t know why, with no one to ask.”
Just like everyone else, high potentials easily lose altitude if they do not consciously chart their path, uncover the whole leader in themselves, and develop critical influence skills. Some do not know how to choose where to go next after the management training programs end. Some experience some setbacks, lose confidence and not recover. Some find themselves in and over their head, befuddled by “politics” and lacking the influence to garner the necessary support for difficult projects.
1. Learning to lead oneself
A profound and common misconception is that high potentials are natural leaders. Our experience with many high potentials with the highest IQs is the contrary. Majority of them do not think of themselves as leaders, but walk the good talk because it is what is expected of them. It is no wonder that many of them are lost after leaving the structure of management training programs. Perhaps for the first time in their life, there is no obvious next step in the ladder to climb. Just like everyone else, high potentials have to discern who is the David in themselves (click to read more), what they are interested in, good at, and how that matches to what organizations and societies need. This is typically a multi-year creative process for people who do it right. The payoff is a North Star that will illuminate one’s journey for a life time.
2. Learning to be humble
A common pitfall of high potentials is a strong belief in oneself, a quasi-sense of invincibility, making it more difficult to overcome mistakes and setbacks. The psychological hit is enormous, when the coin drops that success is not guaranteed, no matter how well high potential you have and high performance you deliver. There are no safe boxes in the upper echelons of organizations, and no safe paths to get there. This moment is pivotal—some leaders allow themselves to be humbled and evolve their mental models and way of being, whereas others defend their own rightness, and blame others. Sadly a few go behind sandbags of cynicism, hubris and do nothing.
3. Learning to influence stakeholders
Another common pitfall of high IQ high potentials is they fail to influence stakeholders who may be less “brilliant” than they are. In an organization of any size, you need to align your stakeholders’s interests to that of the greater whole of what you are trying to do. Politics is simply an interplay of the goals of two or more parties. Stanford Business Professor Eugene Webb said, “Whenever there are two people in the same room, there’s politics.” Our Chairman and Lead Counselor Tsun-Yan Hsieh says, “Don’t be political, be politically aware.” Many high potentials are not influential because they refuse to accept others’ starting point as legitimate and hence need for influence.
These are just a few of fundamental basic reasons of why high potentials get stuck. Others such as messiness in life priorities, burn out, lack of reputation and network, mis-labeled as damaged goods, being pigeonholed and others, will be covered in future articles.
As an extension of our CEO counseling practice, we at LinHart—led by our Principal Huijin Kong—help a very select group of high potentials to (re)gain control of their career and life, in a way that is appropriate for their context and aligned with personal desires. Our LIFE2 program is the entry point for that service from the fading old glory of the previous chapter to a new uncertain adventure that requires tremendous help and support. Some of our high potentials have successfully avoided losing five to 10 years of their career, and others reboot their career after learning the right lessons and backfilling their leadership foundations.