As an advisor and executive coach to companies and CEOs I’ve seen a pattern emerge over the years which I find very concerning.
Companies spend months working on their growth strategies, looking at new markets, investing in technology, restructuring and re-engineering processes. There’s a constant stream of discussion about where the business should be going, what needs to be done and how quickly results are required.
But surprisingly little time goes into checking if the people responsible for these goals are thinking and working at the level the business now needs.
I notice this especially when a new CEO steps in.
There’s fresh energy, a new vision and big ambitions. The leadership team are having strategy sessions and offsites. They’re setting the priorities, agreeing on the targets and everyone comes away feeling on the same page and very much in a positive frame of mind. On paper it all looks very promising.
Then execution begins.
Decisions which should take days end up taking weeks. Departments start to blame each other. Senior people are increasingly getting pulled in to issues which should have been resolved at a much lower level. There’s a general reluctance to take ownership. There are more meetings but the decisions don’t actually get any better.
And gradually the gap between the company’s aspirations and what it actually achieves starts to grow.
The CEO starts asking questions.
Why are we not moving faster? Why is there so much resistance? Why are people not taking accountability? Why are we struggling to deliver something everyone agreed upon?
Often, the answer is to revisit the strategy, add another process, change responsibilities, or ask for more frequent performance revBut in my experience, the problem isn’t always the strategy. It’s the way leaders think when putting it into action.cution.
The Leadership Team Hasn’t Changed, Even Though the Business Has
Every organization develops certain ways of working over time.
Leaders get used to the way decisions are made, the way disputes are managed, the amount of power they have and what sorts of behaviour are rewarded.
Some will learn that it’s safer to pass decisions up the chain rather than make them. Others become very adept at protecting their own department’s results even if that’s detrimental to the wider business.
Some managers have spent their entire careers being rewarded for solving every single problem themselves. Now they’re expected to empower their teams and get people to make decisions for themselves.
These behaviors don’t disappear just because a new strategy has been announced.
This is where I think many CEOs underestimate the challenge.
You can’t expect people to deliver very different results if they’re still using the same ways of thinking and doing things. To go from stability to rapid growth leaders have to be more at ease in making decisions with incomplete information.
If the business is expanding across markets, functional heads must learn to think beyond their individual departments. If the organization wants to become more agile, managers must stop waiting for instructions and begin exercising independent judgment.
These are not simply changes in job responsibilities. They are changes in how people think, lead and operate.
I’ve seen organizations spend a lot on leadership development programs, but still struggle to see real changes in daily leadership behavior.
And this is where I believe CEOs need to rethink their approach to leadership development.
Developing leaders is not simply about sending them to training programs or equipping them with new skills. It is about challenging deeply established thinking patterns, changing behaviors that no longer serve the business, and helping leaders operate at the level the organization’s future demands.
My question to CEOs is simple: You have a strategy for where you want your business to be in the next three to five years. But do you have an equally clear strategy for how your leaders need to think, behave, and operate to get you there?
Because you can’t build tomorrow’s business with yesterday’s leadership.
Written by Payal Nanjiani.
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