Go beyond the bedrock notions that virtually all leaders subscribe to-such as the importance of DEI and the need for a relentless customer focus-and be as specific as you can. Take time to really think through your answers. How would you describe your leadership philosophy and approach to a recruit?.Why are they important for driving success?.How have you lived them in your career?.What three values are most important to you as a leader and a colleague?.When I work with up-and-coming leaders, I ask several questions to help them develop what I call their personal leadership brand. That way, “people won’t have the burden of always thinking, I wonder what he or she would do,” says Sue Desmond-Hellmann, a former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. You were probably advised to have tightly scripted answers to questions such as “What are you working on?” and “What do you want to do?” As you move into a top position, you’ll need a pitch that tackles the questions “Who are you as a leader?” and “What do you care most about?” You want to be predictable in the best sense of the word: someone whose values are unwavering and clear. Be Clear About What You Stand ForĮarly in your career you may have been taught to hone an elevator pitch so that you could make the most of chance encounters with superiors or prospective employers. The following guidelines can help ensure that you’re ready. And it requires expanding your self-awareness and paying attention to the stories you tell yourself about your experiences-your successes and failures, your bad times and good ones-when you contemplate the arc of your career and life.īeing a leader means playing for the team’s success rather than your own and navigating the many balancing acts that make the job so challenging. It requires setting the bar for your team’s performance and learning to compartmentalize so that you can find the right pace for yourself. The process involves identifying and communicating your core values and learning how to approach tough decisions. In this article I’ll explore the mental shifts needed to become a leader and to handle the challenges you’ll encounter in your new role. I wrote the book The Leap to Leader, from which this article is adapted, to share what I’ve learned. From all those conversations clear lessons have emerged about what it takes to make a successful transition to a senior leadership position. I’ve also coached hundreds of high potentials: people whose organizations are betting on them to eventually take the reins. As a journalist, I conducted in-depth interviews with more than 500 CEOs and other executives for “Corner Office,” a feature I created at the New York Times, and over the past six years I’ve interviewed hundreds more for my leadership series on LinkedIn. “We’ll give you advice, but you have to make your own decisions.” With that nudge she found her footing and went on to lead her company to a successful IPO.Īs Herscher’s story illustrates, succeeding as a top leader has little to do with your title and everything to do with your mindset. “You’re looking to the board for permission,” he told her. “I kept finding myself in situations where I didn’t feel I had the experience and the tool set to know what to do, and I kept waiting for permission to make decisions.” Then one of the company’s directors took her aside. “I had no clue how to be a CEO,” she says. Even so, her confidence quickly evaporated. After all, she had held marketing, business development, and general manager positions at her previous company, Synopsys, and she was comfortable taking on difficult challenges. When Penny Herscher stepped into her first chief executive role, at the tech firm Simplex Solutions, she felt sure she was prepared.
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