In The Talent Field, We Are Always Reinventing How We Help Leaders Be Their Best

Ted Nouryan , VP Talent Acquisition, Organizational Development, and HR Operations at PPL Corporation , shared timely insights with me and my colleague Adam Bryant , senior managing director at The ExCo Group .

Reimer: What?are?the X-factors that separate the best leaders today?

Nouryan: Intellectual horsepower is the price of admission. Beyond that, in this dynamic, changing environment, you need to have a “player” mindset so that you know how to solve issues and have the right lens on how to fix something. You need a level of passion to show people you're all in and how excited you are about the journey.?

And you need humility. You can't think that you are the only one who can make things happen and move the ball forward.?So,?you need to listen to your people, get to know them and understand them. People want to know that you care about them, and they'll give you the discretionary effort if you make them feel like you care about their lives beyond what they're doing every day at work.??

Bryant: Can you talk more about what you mean by a player mindset??

Nouryan: A player is the opposite of somebody who sees themselves as a victim. With a victim mindset, everything's happening to you. You couldn't get something done because of external factors. But a player is somebody who, no matter what hand they've been dealt, will do everything they can in their power to accomplish something.??

Reimer: How did you get into the leadership space in the first place?

Nouryan: There were two events that really sparked my interest in leadership. One was a class in college called Industrial Organizational Psychology. I was going to be a business major, but I decided this field was even more interesting because it’s a mix of business and psychology.??

The other was a great CEO from early in my career. I studied his style and approach very carefully, particularly the way he could show his passion for innovation and inspire people and get them energized around a vision. I wondered, how do we build more?leaders?who can inspire and engage while also showing their humility? How do we show them that these skills can be learned??

It's not all going to?come?naturally to people. Not everybody has high emotional intelligence. Not everybody can inspire people with their passion. But you can figure out ways around that, or?try to get better at those things. In this field, we are always reinventing how we help others be their best.?

Bryant: What's the most valuable leadership lesson you learned from your worst manager?

Nouryan: It was about the importance of relationship-building across the enterprise. I had a leader who didn't understand just how crucial those relationships are to helping you achieve your goals. Instead, I watched that boss have arguments with people about what to do and what not to do.?

That boss completely burned every bridge that they went across. I was hired under this person to help them because I was a relationship-builder, and I could rebuild and repair those bridges by listening to people, connecting with them, and responding to what their needs are and helping them accomplish good work.?

Reimer: When you coach and mentor senior executives, what themes come up most often?

Nouryan: With very high-level executives, they sometimes forget that each person has different needs, different motivating factors and different perspectives. They don’t want to get too close to people, and so they create barriers by not trying to understand them. I’ve been in situations where a very senior leader wanted to fire somebody without trying to understand their vector, their lens, and not allowing them to succeed by empowering them. Instead, they need to connect with people and understand what they are passionate about. If you don't do that, you lose their engagement and their discretionary effort.?

Another theme is reminding people to clearly define their line of accountability so that they are not spending too much time in the proverbial engine room. Executives love to dive seven layers deep, but their job is to make three or four?really good?decisions a year for their company. They shouldn’t be worrying about how much money is being spent on something like?seating in the lobby.?

Bryant: How do you hire? What questions do you ask?

Nouryan: I love to ask people, "Walk me through the steps of…"?So,?when somebody says, for example, that they led the transformation of their company, I will then probe on what that meant in practice. “Can you walk me through the steps of what that was like? Tell me about that.”??

I want to know their level of capability and responsibility—what they were there to do, and what they?actually did. Were they leading the transformation or were they leading the communication around the transformation? Were they rolling up their sleeves or not? Were they building the team and building the strategy? Did they come up with the transformation plan or did they execute someone else’s plan???

You can take that approach with anything. If?someone?says that?they are a Six Sigma black belt, I’ll ask them what that entails and what they had to learn. I will dive deep to feel a level of comfort that these people know what they are talking about and whether they understand the nuances of their work.??

Reimer: Are there longstanding ideas in business, or in the leadership field, that you feel are, in effect, past their expiration date and need to be rethought or reframed for this new era??

Nouryan: We need to move away from traditional hierarchies. Businesses?must?understand how to operate like one company even when they have many different operating?units. We?need to?flatten that hierarchy and operate across different boundaries and trajectories. I don't care about your level or your title. I care about whether you?can?help us accomplish our collective goal.??

Anybody in this company should be able to pick up the phone and call anybody else who is an expert on a particular subject, rather than going up and down the chain of command just to get permission to have a conversation. We must?be able to operate across boundaries, across locations, in a different way.??

Bryant: What career and life advice do you give to new college grads?

Nouryan: You can be extremely successful if you're chasing something that you love and you're passionate about it and you work hard at it. It’s about discipline—that’s the X-factor behind the success of great leaders and professional athletes. If you want to do something, you can do it. If you have?discipline,?emotional intelligence,?drive, and passion, you're going to get there.?

Follow us for more insights from The ExCo Group

?

?

?

?