by James E. Lukaszewski, author of “Influencing Leaders: The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor” with Helio Fred Garcia
One of the greatest surprises about leaders is that much of what they do is more or less made up on the spot.
I discovered this early in my career, when I had the chance to coach the CEO of a large insurance company in the Midwest. To coach at this level, you have to meet the person you will be coaching ahead of the scheduled session and there has to be almost an instant chemistry. It is about chemistry — can you work together; do you have this feeling that you are both on the same page?
My “beauty contest” interview with this CEO took place in his wonderful, exotic office at the top of a very tall building. The view was amazing. The office had three full window walls; it was awesome. It was also really intimidating. As we began talking, it was pretty evident that the CEO had a “visitor management approach” because visitors asked the same questions about the view every time.
The moment a visitor starts to speak or ask questions, the CEO takes the visitor’s arm, leads him or her first to window number one, then around the perimeter answering all the questions about each wall—pointing out landmarks, history, useful details — at about 45-60 seconds per window.
As he began explaining the third window view, my brain was screaming at me to, “Say something really important, real soon. Only one wall left, and that one has the door.” My mental voice commanded, “If you want to get this job you better ask an important question now.” So, I managed to interrupt the CEO with a question.
“Tell me something, do you always know what to do?” I asked.
“You run a company of 14,000 employees; I have a company of 14 employees. My people expect me to solve today’s problems and move ahead for tomorrow, following a plan. Do you know what to do every minute?”
He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Don’t you ever tell anybody this, but I think the board actually hired me because they knew that half of my important decisions would be carried out by people who actually knew what they were doing. They hired me because I had a good sense of where we would need to go, and at least half of my decisions would be carried out by people who really knew what they were doing. They felt that I could estimate and make the right decisions in the grey areas at least 25 percent of the time. The remaining 25 percent they sort of left to me to figure out.”
“But I’ll tell you something,” he continued, pointing at the door, “Every employee in this company thinks I have the answers. They think that I have a plan. I’ve got news for you, there is no plan. But if I were going to tell this to the people that work for me, they wouldn’t believe it for a minute.”
What I learned from that encounter, and it has been with me ever since, is the recognition that CEOs in particular are making it up 25% of the time. They have to create what is next. They are making it up based on their experience or lack of it, on their concerns or their fears, and oftentimes on the perceived opportunities.
This is an extremely interesting insight to have.
When I am in meetings, and the meetings are wandering off track, once in a while I will turn to the CEO and ask if this is the part we know how to do, or the part we are making up as we go. It is amazing how stunningly accurate this comment can be.
It happens every day in the executive suite, and it is something we should think about because it is one of the reasons that they let us in. They expect us to help them move the business ahead every single day, to help figure out what to do next. This is one of the greatest contributions you can make.
*excerpted from “Influencing Leaders: The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor”
James E. Lukaszewski is America’s Crisis Guru®, CEO of The Lukaszewski Group. A best-selling author, his next book “Influencing Leaders: The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor” with Helio Fred Garcia, will be released July 26. (Wiley)
