LEADERSHIP: WHEN YOU’RE NEWLY APPOINTED

Published: 2010-08-09   please add a comment below

If you’ve just been promoted, you might want to read “Letter to a newly appointed CEO” by Ian Davis, a former Managing Director of McKinsey & Co. It’s a practical checklist whatever your seniority – and even if you’ve been in your role for some time. When did you last re-think your priorities: what to do more of and what less? How to allocate your time? I bet if I asked your colleagues they’d have some suggestions. Why not get in first? Here’s a summary of Davis’s ten points plus some comments.

• Context – what’s the history and what’s expected by your various constituencies?
• Horizon – how long do you have: is it a turnaround or a more stable situation?
• Loading – what are the must-dos and what can wait so you don’t burn out?
• Agenda – what’s urgent and what’s important; and, where’s the space for thinking?
• Team – who’s going to be on your top team, covering the bases but not clones?
• Bosses – how do you earn respect from your board, others you report to – and key customers?
• Support – who will be your personal staff, totally committed to helping you succeed?
• Communication – what are your key messages; where and how will you keep promoting them?
• Input – where and how will you get frank, accurate and unbiased information and feedback?
• Balance – what are your ground rules to avoid overload; ways to renew and sustain the pace?

My summary is so cryptic it’s almost banal. But, Davis’s ideas are not revolutionary. They’re just too often forgotten. We succumb unthinkingly to must-attend meetings, can’t-avoid visits and ad hoc crises. Being busy supplants adding value. Sometimes while I was a CEO, I’d suddenly realise I was in an airport again or at some dinner and wonder why. Was it necessary? Or, an ego trip? Or, just avoiding being in the office: a sort of crappy downtime?

Whether you’re a CEO or section head and whether you’re newly appointed or long established, there are two fundamental questions. From the business perspective: what are your commercial priorities and where can you add unique value to achieving them. And, from the people perspective: what can you uniquely do that will convince people to support and strive for those business objectives?

These two broad questions underlie the Leadership Action Planning framework I developed over the last couple of decades. It starts by asking “what is holding your people back from full commitment?” Is it doubts about where you’re all going, whether it’s feasible or what? Once their concerns are identified, your next job is to list the types of actions you, as their leader, could take to address their worries. Finally, make those actions specific – turning them into a plan (what you’ll do, where, with whom and when). And the plan will bridge both “hard” commercial, market and technical actions as well as the so-called “soft” ones of people, values and culture – balanced according to what your people need from you.

As with any undertaking, not having a plan means things can’t go according to plan. And, that’s true whether you’re transitioning or already in the hot seat!

Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership^®