Six common development areas for executives

In my past corporate life, I had the privilege of gaining insight into the confidential inner workings at the top of organisations as a People & Culture executive and senior leader.

Behind the curtain in these roles, I partnered with CEOs and executives, entrusted with pivotal activities, from coaching underperforming executives to providing feedback to senior leaders with low self-awareness. I had the unique opportunity to facilitate the engagement of external coaches for executives and contribute to crucial hiring and firing leadership decisions.

Navigating this space posed its challenges at times, with my peers occasionally expressing discomfort, or resentment due to the substantial amount of sensitive information I had access to. As an executive coach, I continue to be privileged with insights into life at the top of business.

Now I am invited to coach executives eager to advance and level up, or those who are mandated to seek coaching support. Each coaching dynamic presents unique nuances, yet my ultimate goal remains consistent: to support leaders in understanding their cognitive, emotional, and behavioural patterns to enact positive, purposeful change.

One of the recurring questions I encounter pertains to the common areas of executive development. That is, what frequent types of feedback do executives receive. Amidst the diverse coaching scenarios, six common executive development areas consistently emerge. Note they do not apply to everyone at once! Read on....

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1. Lack of self-awareness in interacting with others

• Every executive (and person!) has blind spots, or gaps in their intent versus how other people experience them. The extend of this gap depends on our curiosity to understand the way we relate to ourselves and others, and our people radar.
• Low self-awareness plays out in a myriad of ways in leaders – struggling to regulate our emotional response (being easily stressed, frustrated, or anxious), being too domineering towards others, playing small, or other unhelpful behaviours.
• Addressing blind spots and bridging the gap between intent and perception is crucial to being an effective executive.

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2. Misalignment in operating at the right level - being overly operational or strategic

• Some executives are too hands which means they are either intentionally, or unintentionally micro-managing their teams and struggling to empower them. This is common for technical experts like accountants, or engineers who were rewarded for their detailed knowledge earlier in their career. This group can struggle to make the transition up the leadership pipeline to focus on less tangible activities like influencing peers, big picture thinking, or balancing risks in decision making. They are asked to be more 'strategic'.
• Alternatively, other executives may be viewed as ‘too strategic’ and perceived as not wanting to get their hands dirty. This means they frequently miss the struggles their team are experiencing, undervalue their role as a coach and may not take their team on a change journey.
• Contributing at the right level as an executive is tricky to get right. Yes, it depends on the executive’s default leadership style, however other external factors influence how they show up also such as the CEO’s tendency to empower, or control.

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3. The need to enhance their ability to influence across the organisation

• As executives, struggling to influence those around us can play out differently in practice. It might be that we are playing small and not using our authentic voice, not bringing an enterprise view to the table and only contributing to discussions on our functional area, exhibiting frustration at those with differing views, or getting locked into arguments to persuade rather than understanding other’s perspectives.
• Gathering specific feedback on how other’s experience our influencing style in different scenarios is key to making changes.

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4. Low self-confidence and the hesitation to back oneself

• In the psychology world we tend not to use the work self-confidence as it is a construct that is hard to measure and thus tricky to conduct research on. Instead, we use the term low self-efficacy (our belief we might struggle to achieve a specific goal), or that we do not have a strong sense of self (we struggle to see the value in our unique contribution as a leader).
• Most executives have their game face on and hide their insecurities from their peers well – there is a lot of pretending that everyone is coping well at the top.
• In reality, many executives have low self-efficacy and do not have a strong sense of self. As a result, we may have an unhelpful, negative internal dialogue that consumes our cognitive energy and drives our ambitious behaviour to seek external validation through our achievements at work.

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5.???? Having an overinflated sense of self

• This is the common profile of the old paradigm of executive leadership which still exists, however is reducing in its influence. This is the executive who is overconfident, directive, argumentative, self-focused, intimidating, manipulative, thinks they know everything, and the list goes on…
• This profile of executive clearly lacks self-awareness, however their leadership style is often driven by fear and self-doubt which is hard to comprehend when their behaviours scream arrogance.
• It may also indicate Narcissistic personality style, or personality disorder as research tells us there is a higher prevalence of this way of relating to others at the top of organisations.

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6.???? Expanding influence through greater executive presence

• Ten years ago this used to be one of the most generic pieces of developmental feedback executives received, akin to ‘be more strategic’. However, I have heard less about executive presence in the last 3 years as we observe a positive shift towards a more inclusive definition of what great leadership looks like.
• Organisations no longer seeking purely extroverted leaders. We value introverted, empathetic executives who are able to listen deeply too.
• Typically, an executive given feedback to increase their presence indicates they are struggling to contribute, influence and inspire others in an overt manner. It is frequently linked to low efficacy.?

These 6 development areas represent fundamental opportunities for executives to increase their effectiveness.

How have you seen these 6 executive development areas play out in practice?

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If you are considering investing in yourself and partnering with an international executive coach, then reach out to share your leadership story with me. I can share with you how we could work together to help you love life at the top of business.

https://www.thrivingpeopleconsulting.com/coaching/1_1-executive-coaching/

We can only change what we can see in ourself.

Rebecca Christianson - Executive Coach & Leadership Strategist

Founder & CEO - Thriving People

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