By Bruce Watt, Ph.D.
In the last few weeks, I had three particularly exhausting coaching sessions. It wasn’t about the individuals or the process, but instead the intense and urgent issues that each leader brought to the table.
These leaders manage sizable operations in the Asia-Pacific region and are confronting serious threats to the viability of their businesses caused by the ongoing global financial crisis. They had the technical skills, experience and knowledge to do what was needed, but were seriously challenged by the inefficiencies and distractions that were impeding the success of their actions. In short, each were derailing in different ways (micromanaging, being indecisive, alienating others) but for the same reason—not successfully intervening in their own derailing tendencies.
As leaders, it’s a common experience for our reputations to be earned not necessarily by what we do day-to-day but rather by those critical things that might happen under pressure (I call this the one-day-in-a-hundred effect). This is because of the heightened visibility of our actions under stress and a tendency for “the darker side” of our characters to manifest. Today’s uncertainty is chronically stressful and is a Petri dish for leadership derailers.
So while I was exhausted at the end of these coaching sessions, it was intensely rewarding working through leadership development in the “heat-of-battle”. Successful leadership is not incidental; it must be practiced constantly under all conditions. Despite its savage and painful impact, I predict that history will document that the global financial crisis created a learning “crucible” that produced a generation of great leaders who will make the planet a much better place than it was before.
Bruce Watt is the Managing Director of DDI Australia.
Comments