April 2021 Newsletter Articles

---

What Good Leaders do When Replacing Bad Leaders
by Andrew Blum

Every leader who fills a top role previously held by someone else faces the same challenge: They must deal with the outgoing leader’s accomplishments and shortcomings. When your predecessor was successful, you will be judged against their accomplishments.

But when replacing a poor or controversial leader, you may have to take accountability for your predecessor’s mistakes, while simultaneously creating a new vision for the organization. Poor leadership can damage an institution, whether it’s a government or a Fortune 500 company, and often a new leader must take aggressive action in order to save the enterprise — while avoiding throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Finally, all of this must also be done within an organization that may be both skeptical and exhausted.

Managing all of these tensions can be challenging for even the most seasoned leaders. As an executive coach and consultant, I’ve helped dozens of leaders navigate this transition over the past two decades. I’ve seen leaders rise to the occasion, but I’ve also seen struggles, even when leaders come with the best intentions. With a few basic strategies, it’s possible to not only help a company move on from poor leadership, but to transform the organization and help everyone within it reach their potential.

1. Acknowledge the contributions of the previous leader
Good leaders create a separation between the past and the future. Many people are inclined to do this by completely ignoring their predecessors — or worse blaming the previous leaders for all the faults and challenges facing the organization. This is especially tempting if your predecessor is viewed in a bad light.

But good leaders acknowledge the past realities, including the likelihood that any leader, no matter how poor, did something right. You will probably have employees supportive of previous leadership, and they will have mixed views on what went wrong before and what has to be done differently. New leaders are well advised to acknowledge any positives that a predecessor brought while also openly discussing the trauma and damage they created within the enterprise.

Sometimes, the reason for parting isn’t as heavy, but still must be addressed. I recently helped with the CEO transition of a large multinational company. The business had suffered greatly during the pandemic, and as a result the business strategy had to evolve dramatically. The board determined that the previous CEO wasn’t the right person for the next phase.

As we managed the transition, the new CEO continually emphasized gratitude for his predecessor, who had built the company up, reaching extraordinary levels of success. He simply wasn’t the right person to get the job done going forward.

Successful leadership is about the art of balancing these two seemingly opposite truths. The predecessors certainly weren’t idle, but they also were not effective or were not likely to be effective going forward. Good leaders must acknowledge both of these things directly, authentically, and with integrity.

2. Enable a vision for the future by creating a space for forgiveness 
Most bad leaders’ actions are, in some part, rooted in good intentions. But often even the best of intentions have unintended consequences or worse, result in collateral damage.

Acknowledging the gap between the previous leader’s intentions and results can be as simple as saying “I understand the previous executives had big dreams for this company, but their methods (or approach, or style) didn’t work.”

Often, we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. Reminding people of this doesn’t absolve the previous leader, but it does humanize outgoing leadership and creates room for forgiveness.  As the saying goes “to err is human, to forgive divine.”

In this context, forgiveness creates room for a new vision and direction and allows people to let go of the past and move into the future together. Resentments have a gravity of their own that often leads us to repeat the patterns of the past. Forgiveness often has the opposite effect and creates room for new possibilities.

In one example, we helped a new CEO take over from the dynamic but controversial founder of a tech company. To create space for forgiveness, the new leader held a senior team meeting focused on three questions:

What about how we have worked and operated do we want to maintain?
What do we want to leave behind?
What do we want to create anew?
What the team discovered was that many of their current methods were effective, and that those philosophies were enabled by the previous leader. However, there were also some things that needed to be left behind. That balanced view allowed for feelings of both appreciation and forgiveness regarding the previous leader, while repositioning the go-forward efforts as a healthy evolution. There was no negation of the past leader and what had been put in place, good or bad. Circumstances change, requiring leaders to evolve and adapt.

3. Seek to understand your employees’ experiences
Many new leaders falter when they simply see themselves as the corrective force to their predecessors without investing the time to understand the full impact of the previous regime or by failing to include their teams in creating the future. You don’t automatically become a good leader merely by taking over for a bad one, or in having a different perspective from the outgoing executive. Ultimately, you become a good leader by leading differently and more inclusively.

Listen to people who felt the adverse effects of the previous leader and use that information to inform your vision. Explicitly ask individuals or groups within the company how can I help you now? What do you most want and need going forward? What do you hope I will do? What do you hope I won’t do? Bad leaders don’t ask those questions, but good leaders always do.

In the executive transition at the multinational company discussed earlier, before the new CEO issued any new plans or strategies, he started interviewing. He spent a full month meeting with and talking to employees at every level of the organization and saw what was needed for the company to evolve. When he rolled out his strategic plan, it was received with universal enthusiasm because every employee saw their voice represented in the go-forward vision.

Humans are built to move on and once they feel truly understood they often move on of their own accord. This can’t be rushed, but if you give them a vision of what “could be” most people will gladly leave the past behind. You can’t force people to move on, but you can show them that things will be different by listening and taking their hard-earned lessons to heart.

By acknowledging the gap between the actions and intentions of a previous leader, recommitting to your own vision, and asking the people under your leadership what they need, you can be on the path to not only replacing a bad leader, but becoming a much more effective leader yourself. Whether it’s replacing an outgoing CEO or a president, leaders who commit to these practices will unlock the energy and wisdom of the people they lead. In so doing, they will help create a future that is distinct from the past and that makes sense for everyone.

The Surprising Power of Peer Coaching
by Brenda Steinberg and Michael Watkins

 Given a choice between working one-on-one with an executive coach or working with a group of peers in a facilitated coaching process, most executives would choose the former. Surely, the thinking goes, it’s better to have an experienced coach’s focused attention instead of relying on dialogue with your peers to support your development. The coach will get to know you well, understand your development needs, and focus exclusively on you. How could working with a group possibly be better?

This rationale overlooks the substantial benefits of small-group coaching. In the leadership programs we facilitate, our participants often comment on how much more valuable the group coaching experience was than they expected. The benefits are different from and complementary to those realized in a one-on-one setting.

The benefits of small-group coaching come from powerful learning interactions among leaders who aren’t on the same team but are roughly equal in experience and position. By bringing people together who have no formal accountability to or interactions with each other, you can create deep learnings that wouldn’t be available otherwise. We’ve found this happens because the process provides the following benefits.

Immersion in real-time group dynamics. In one-on-one coaching, the coach does not see you interact with others. So, the belief that the coach will know you better through individual coaching sessions doesn’t hold up in practice; their experience of you is quite limited. If, for example, your goal is to engage more effectively with your team, both the coach and the group will witness and feel the impact of your behaviors in the group setting. 

Insight into diverse perspectives. If the process is set up well, your group members will have different personalities, experiences, and goals. They’ll see the world differently, and you’ll benefit from understanding their perspectives and challenges. These differences will allow you to gain deeper insights by comparing yourself to others in your group. Identifying commonalities and differences will help you better understand your strengths and the impact of your blind spots.

Opportunities to practice new skills in a safe space. The small group is a vehicle to enhance valuable leadership skills, including listening, being vulnerable, getting comfortable with others’ perspectives and emotions, asking insightful questions, giving and getting direct feedback, and helping people find their own solutions. Many of these skills will directly relate to your learning objectives, and you’ll become better at coaching, motivating, and developing people.

A robust accountability system. Many leaders experience challenges in getting direct and honest feedback at work. As your group develops a foundation of psychological safety, you’ll get that feedback. Whether your goal is to be bolder, develop your strategic thinking skills, or emotionally connect with your team, your group members will give you regular input on your progress. Additionally, by openly sharing your goals and action plans and having regular check-ins, other group members will hold you accountable. The social forces operating in coaching groups are likely to have a more powerful impact on you than can be achieved by working with a coach alone. 

An enduring support network. Finally, with enough time together, most coaching groups develop a foundation of openness and trust. Being a senior leader can leave you feeling isolated; there are often business issues and personal concerns that cannot be shared with your reports and peers. Group members can become a source of both support and valuable insight. These relationships often continue beyond the formal small-group process and don’t depend on the coach to be sustained. Additionally, many leaders, having experienced the group’s deep bonding, will work to create greater connectedness both at work and in their personal lives.

You won’t realize those considerable benefits unless you build some essential foundations early on. The ultimate goal of small-group coaching is to achieve the highest possible levels of individual and group learning. To get there, all members of the group must be committed to the following actions. 

Nurturing a climate of trust and support. To build such an environment, group members must have a shared commitment to maintain complete confidentiality. A sense of psychological safety allows group members (including you!) to feel comfortable revealing doubts and weaknesses and sharing perspectives with total honesty.

Having a collaborative attitude. Group members must take responsibility for helping others improve rather than just pointing out their mistakes or weaknesses. Small-group coaching is not a vehicle for evaluation, nor should it be a forum for competition. Group members should strive to be collaborative, objective, and fair. The goal is to support each other by providing constructive feedback and advice without being cynical or judgmental. 

Listening actively. Group members should be each other’s thinking partners, giving accurate information about others’ behavior, asking relevant and probing questions, and sharing their views. In these ways, they demonstrate that they value others’ skills and judgment. Be curious about other participants and their experiences.

Providing direct feedback. Collaborative and empathetic attitudes should not be a reason to avoid discussing shortcomings. Too much positivity leads to complacency and mediocrity, while too much negativity creates defensiveness and withdrawal. Group members must be open to seeing themselves from others’ perspectives.

Being generous. In small-group coaching discussions, strong emotions inevitably emerge and need to be discussed. They should be handled through appropriate expressions of understanding and exploration.

Taking risks. Group coaching will require you to step outside your comfort zone. To create learning, you’ll need to be vulnerable in exploring your challenges and in summoning the courage to question others on sensitive issues and give direct feedback.

The process of small-group coaching can generate leadership development impacts that exceed what’s possible in one-on-one coaching. If you follow these guidelines, you’ll learn more about yourself and the organization you lead. Moreover, by asking for support from others and creating a safe place for exploration, you’ll build foundational skills for all future personal and organizational growth.​