The Three Turns of an Executive Leader

This collection of articles on the Three Turns grows from the Maestro-Level Leaders Initiative of Design Group International. A supporting podcast -- The Third Turn -- welcomes your subscription.

?Design Group International. All Rights Reserved.

The First Turn of the Executive Leader

This photo makes me laugh. A well-groomed professional is ready to go places, but something isn’t working. The expected normal has failed. Perhaps it is an easy fix, and someone else’s technical assistance will get him on his way shortly. Or, maybe something about his car is completely broken, and he will have to adapt to his circumstance.?He is going to have to figure something out. When he does, he will be mobile again and wiser for it.

I?can’t think of a better expression of the executive leader’s ongoing development. Stuff breaks. Some fixes are technical, but the more one’s leadership grows, the more complex and adaptive the challenges become. They have to figure it out if there is going to be any forward momentum. Wisdom will accumulate.

Maestro-level Leaders, a?Design Group International initiative,?identifies three turns in an Executive Leader’s Development.

This is?NOT:

• Turn one = good
• Turn two = better
• Turn three=best

All three turns are good. Each can provide its own fulfilling destination, and all three are capable of providing a challenging and excellent career journey. It is also possible for a person to get stuck in any one of them, requiring technical or adaptive help to bring further forward movement.

Basic description of these three turns is on the?Maestro-level leaders?landing page, as well as on the?Third Turn Podcast.

Turn One is about the Leadership of Self:

• Discovering capabilities
• Seeing the distinction between what we love to do and our capabilities
• Finding boundaries
• Developing emotional intelligence
• Building out skill sets
• Honing the capacity to be self-reflective
• Learning to work on teams, and perhaps to lead projects with the collaboration of others
• Proving that one can actually do the work
• Refinement of a personal vision for growth
• Developing healthy and ongoing rhythms

Turn One can be likened to becoming an Artisan.?The Artisan is the excellent crafter — one who can follow previously established patterns well, demonstrating that they can be trusted not to break things. Their work is sought out because of its excellence. The First Turn Leader delivers on the promise.

Inside an organization, the developing First Turn Leader can find their journey mapped out thus:

Please note that the arrow for Turn One runs downward. Rather than rising to the top of the organization, Turn One Leaders descend to the center of the organization.?

For some reason we are enamored with the idea that a leader rises on the shoulders of others rather than others rising on theirs. This mistaken understanding promotes many to the helm of organizations because they were competent in performing their professional craft rather than because their leadership craft was well-developed. Perhaps they were promoted. Perhaps they felt they should strike out on their own. The result is mediocre and can lead to a quick flame-out, or worse, a failed dream. There is a difference between leading out of technical competence and leading out of learning competence!?

[Watch this quick summary?video from Michael Gerber’s the E-myth Revisited?if you want some evidence]

A developing leader in Turn One learns to perform and then to master their craft. Finance? Sales? HR? Customer Service? Assembly? Design? Coding? Wherever their expertise is rising to be recognized, they have to manage themselves well enough to get the work done with something more than competence if they intend to grow as a leader. At this level of Mastery some will stop and have a satisfying life, enjoying the application of what they’ve learned, over and over, with recognized excellence that makes them valuable to the employer and to those they serve.?Others will grow beyond into mentoring others coming into their first turn, perhaps being invited to manage a team, perhaps directing a series of teams, eventually leading an entire operation.

Again, this is a progression of responsibility, not necessarily a desired destination - and certainly not for everyone.?A person?in the First Turn moves further away from the excellence of their starting skill set as they go deeper into leadership responsibility. If they want to grow as a leader, the ability to learn their craft needs to become the ability to learn to lead. As they do this, they leave big parts of their original craft behind in order to take up this new one.?

Turn Two begins here.

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The Second Turn of the Executive Leader

Same tracks, at a point of divergence.

Once the switch is made, it is difficult to return.?

If one should choose to return, all forward progress must cease so that the train can back up and begin again.?

If an Executive Leader masters self—professional skills and personal character—they may have the opportunity to enter Turn Two. Once they shift from Turn One and embrace Turn Two, it is difficult to go back again. Not impossible, but difficult.

Turn Two of the Executive Leader is the leadership of others and the organization. This diverges beyond the downward vertical of Turn One and its professional discipline to become the horizontal responsibility for the whole organization.?

Rather than sitting at the top of the organization as so many seem to think, the Turn Two Executive Leader descends to its foundation.?

Rather than dominating the organization, the Turn Two Executive Leader undergirds it.

Maestro-level Leaders, a?Design Group International initiative,?identifies three turns in an Executive Leader’s development.?

This is?NOT:

• Turn One = inferior
• Turn Two = superior
• Turn Three = exceptional

Each turn provides fulfillment in its own right. We can find people in each turn who are heroic in their leadership, and we can find people who are not figuring it out.?

Each turn provides its own hurdles for the leader to overcome as they develop personal and organizational capacity.?

Turn Two is about the leadership of?others?within an organization.

• Organizing and utilizing capabilities
• Articulating and implementing vision, strategy, goals, and objectives in light of the organization’s purpose, mission, and guiding values
• Managing the value of the organization — top|middle|bottom lines and with long|mid|short-term in mind
• Helping others cultivate their highest and best, especially as they build out their skill sets
• Building and guiding high-performing teams
• Developing, expecting, and reporting on operational excellence
• Keeping the flow of information and communication consistent, accurate, and unimpeded
• Serving as a steward of the organization on behalf of its ownership
• Continuing to build the leadership of self?

Turn Two?can be likened to becoming an Artist.?While the Turn One Artisan is the excellent crafter of the previously established pattern, the Turn Two Leader moves to?artistry?— bringing their own vision to the craftsmanship and inviting others to bring artisanship to the vision the artist holds. A successful Turn Two Leader demonstrates that they can run things in new ways with increasing capacity, doing so with people who can be trusted not to break things. Excellence is seen in the organization’s increased ability to deliver on the promise of its mission.

Please note that the arrow for Turn Two runs horizontally, and increasingly so. As mentioned, rather than "rising" to the head of the organization, A Turn Two Leader supports the organization in all its verticals, including those in which they have little or no expertise.?

Corporate culture makes it easy to believe that a leader must be god-like in power and must control the message about their infinite competence. Underlying this is the mistaken understanding that promotes such a person in the first place — that because they were competent in leading a department, they are ready to lead a whole enterprise by simply doing more of the same. Too many Turn Two Leaders are hired under this false pretense, and too many take their C-suite position believing this is the chief requirement of them. The result seldom delivers on the promise, leading to short tenure in the C-Suite, big payouts to make someone go away, and decimated businesses.?

There is a difference between leading out of previous experience and leading out of learning competence!

Learning?brings a person through Turn One.?Learning while doing what is right and good?is the chief resource for the Turn Two Executive Leader.

[Watch this brief?video from David Maister?if you would like a reminder of life-long learning.]

An Executive Leader in Turn Two learns to bring out the highest and best in their people while navigating toward a compelling mission with a clear vision, within the boundaries of guiding values. All business disciplines are drawn on as operational excellence is defined, built, managed, reported on, evaluated, and adjusted. At this level of Artistry, some will see their career reach a peak. They will have a deeply satisfying life, enjoying the accomplishments of their team, year in and year out, making them valuable to the ownership they serve. Others will grow beyond this capacity development of people and the organization in which they work, able to look to a longer horizon, perhaps able to reach out to future value from yet-unknown possibilities, perhaps leaving a longer and deeper legacy as they plan for succession and the welfare of their grandchildren’s grandchildren.

Again, this is a progression of responsibility and possibility, not necessarily a desired destination?— and certainly not for everyone.??A person in the Second Turn moves beyond just learning to develop the operational excellence of an organization and its people as their own excellence deepens. If they still wish to grow as a leader, the ability to develop organizational capacity needs to become a re-entry into entrepreneurial space with the intention to lead toward legacy and future value. As they do this, they leave big parts of organizational and people development under the stewardship of people they themselves developed in order to reach for that future value.

Turn Three begins here.

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?The Third Turn of the Executive Leader

It does not have to be all downhill from here. Besides, who says a downward slope is a bad thing?

True, once you gain momentum beyond the crest, reversing is almost impossible - and harmful to try.

But, if you intend new adventures, why should fear seize you now?

If an Executive Leader masters self — professional skills and personal character — they?may have the opportunity to enter Turn Two. If an Executive Leaders masters leadership of others within a set of organizational systems, they?may?have the opportunity to enter Turn Three’s downward slope with unseen curves, in order to rise upward yet again.

Turn Three is where leadership into future value, succession, and legacy lie, moving away from an organization’s current activity to the downward slope of future value, as yet unknown. Rather than remaining at the foundation, the Third Turn Leader moves downward and outward to where the organization will need to arrive.

Maestro-level Leaders, a?Design Group International initiative,?identifies three turns in an Executive Leader’s development.

This is?NOT:

• Turn One = get past it
• Turn Two =?don’t get stuck here
• Turn Three = final destination

Each turn can be a wonderful place to spend a career. Each turn can be a place to fully and joyously inhabit - or a dead end. Each turn also has elements of the other two, and each of us can grow our capacities in all three. However, one of the turns is where we will live.?

• The majority of people will spend their work lives as Turn One Artisans, potentially mastering themselves and their craft. Some will refuse to build this mastery and will circulate through a series of unsatisfying jobs.
• Some people will embrace a Turn Two Artistry, bringing others to the originality of a new or modified vision as they lead an organization. They will ask Turn One Artisans to bring their craft to that vision. Some will try to lead out of their Turn One expertise in Turn Two and will be remarkably unsuccessful.
• A few will raise their leadership to that of a Turn Three Maestro, launching off of the operational excellence created in Turn Two (now under the leadership of others), letting their stewardship soar toward the future value of the firm. Many who enter Turn Three will find it to be the most difficult and unhappy work they ever engaged. They will not be able to soar, because they are unable to let go into the unknown.

Repeating what has been written previously:?each turn provides fulfillment in its own right. We can find people in each turn who are heroic in their leadership, and we can find people who are not figuring it out.?

Turn Three is about leadership where legacy is concerned:

• Bringing leadership to the field and to the market being served
• Facing into the chaos of future value and building new product mixes and service offerings that eclipse the current ones
• Preparing and unleashing the next generation of leaders, especially successor(s)
• Leading with one's grandchildren’s grandchildren in mind, as well as others' grandchildren’s grandchildren
• Articulating, curating, and leveraging wisdom
• Continuing to build leadership of self
• Continuing to expect operational excellence so that the current value of the firm is maintained and grown?

Turn Three is that of the Maestro or Maister — the wise master teacher.?While the Turn One Artisan is the excellent crafter of the previously established pattern, and the Turn Two Leader moves to the artistry of bringing their own vision to that craftsmanship, a successful Turn Three Maestro pioneers entirely new art forms so that new artists and artisans can emerge.

Please note that the arrow for Turn Three runs down and to the right, following the gravitational force of entropy until new discoveries, resources, and momentum can begin to exert upward and profitable pressure yet again. This is moving beyond the organization’s current moment to illuminate, develop, and grow its future value.?A Turn Three Leader prepares the domain in which the organization will meaningfully contribute in the future.

There are several patterns among successful leaders who have Third-Turn potential.

• They attempt to lead forever and ever; their families and friends protect their image and public reputation (e.g.,?Ronald Reagan).
• They stay in place until they are removed by their enemies or sycophants even while they try to remain in power (e.g.,?Aung San Suu Kyi).
• They explode or devolve (e.g.,?Steve Easterbrook).
• They suddenly disappear or run away (e.g.,?Carlos Ghosn).
• They stutter to a stop (e.g.,?Brett Farvre).?

The above real-life stories grow from the errant thinking that power is not to be released to others, as well as from denial that an end is coming. This is especially true when there is no plan for life beyond the Second Turn. Because there are so few compelling examples of winsome leadership growing from the person’s being (Turn Three) rather than their skills (Turn One) or position (Turn Two), it is difficult to map any journey into the unknown. The result is that future value is not achieved, successors are not named or cannot succeed, and legacy is tarnished. There is a difference between leading into future and unknown experiences and leading out of trying to age in place!

Learning?brings a person through Turn One.?Learning while doing what is right and good?is the chief resource for the Turn Two Executive Leader.?Learning?while facing an unknown journey into future value that fosters the welfare of our collective grandchildren’s grandchildren?is the chief job of the Turn Three Maestro-level Leader.

[Watch this brief?video with?Václav?Havel?as one example]

Who would you add to such a list as an example for your own aspiration?

Again, this is a progression of responsibility and possibility, a potentially aspired but not prescribed destination.??Everyone who lives into and beyond the Third Turn makes the world better for the rest of us. Our grandchildren’s grandchildren need more such leaders.?

Today.

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?Design Group International. All Rights Reserved.

Mark L. Vincent, PhD, EPC, is the Founder of Design Group International and the Society for Process Consulting.

He facilitates:

• Maestro-level Leaders?cohorts for seasoned executives focused on their firm's future value
• The "Third Turn Podcast," with his co-host Jeanette Robért
• Executive Advising and Process Consulting engagements, especially in unique and complex scenarios

Mark's accumulated experience includes more than thirty-five years pioneering a variety of approaches to leadership and organizational capacity-building, entrepreneurship, interim executive leadership and professional development and credentialing. His focus on helping organizations and leaders achieve their objectives has led to successful initiatives with more than 650 clients in varied domestic and international marketplaces. In 2001 he created Design Group International, a Community of Practice for Process Consultants.

Dr. Vincent’s academic work included research into complex decision making as well as economic strategy for associational systems (e.g. franchises, professional associations, denominations). He has written and presented extensively on stewardship and steward leader theology and practice, serving as the Founding Editor for?Giving?Magazine and writing several related books, most notably?A Christian View of Money. Mark’s wife Lorie, prior to her death at the end of a sixteen-year journey with leiomyosarcoma,?joined him in writing the book?Fighting Disease, Not Death: Finding a Way Through Lifelong Struggle.

Mark's most recent work is a curated blog called?Walking beside my dying wife,?about his journey toward hope during the years of her suffering and beyond.

Mark founded the?Eastern Wisconsin Convene Team?in 2013, a best practices peer-based advising team for company owners and CEOs. He also guides the growing?consulting network for Convene.?In 2017, he was instrumental in the launching the?Society for Process Consulting, and he teaches the introductory and core competency courses for those seeking a professional credential in this field. He serves on the boards of?Cox Family Holdings,?Petersen Products, and?the Steward’s Journey?and sits on the Standards and Ethics Committee for the Society for Process Consulting.

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