Steering, not rowing

A recurring issue for new directors is learning how to detach themselves from the day-to-day and instead focus on the strategic direction of the whole enterprise.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise. After all, when people embark on a career their training is focused on particular technical or professional skills - as a surveyor, accountant, lawyer or teacher- and they learn how to be proficient in that sphere.

What they rarely learn are the subsequent management skills they will need as they progress in their career, especially how to manage people, or win work.

A world of specialists

I see this regularly with my director coachees. I’ve worked with outstanding people who, to date, have been promoted because of their specialist skills - in accounts, in their legal knowhow or in sales. All the way through their profession, to that point, their success has rested on that skill.

Yet, as they rise to becoming a director, their role and value changes. Instead of being judged on their financial or accounting proficiency they find that, perhaps for the first time in their career, those skills are assumed.

I worked with one excellent accountant who had made his name on the quality and clarity of his forecasting and cash management. All his training and success had rested on these important skills for his employer and he had grown used to long hours and becoming intimately familiar with every column of his accounts.

He remained embedded in the details - his comfort zone

Yet he was struggling with being promoted to Finance Director. He remained embedded in the details - his comfort zone - when the Board needed to understand the bigger picture. During Board meetings he confined himself to talking about financial matters.

Working with him, it became clear that not only had he not adjusted to the different role of being a director, he had, in fact, presumed that his elevation simply made him more responsible for financial matters, rather than being collectively responsible for all aspects of the business.

This manifested itself in his failure to delegate the detailed work and to instead build the right team. When he should have been considering the wider threats and opportunities within and outside the business, he was instead micromanaging his financial team.

This individual is not alone. Many good professionals struggle to switch from their core skills to become effective directors, able to set the overall direction and create the environment within which the whole organisation can flourish. In the education world, there are many cases of good teachers who find that the higher they rise, the further they get from the classroom. In architecture there are many brilliant designers who struggle with winning new work or building strong relationships with their clients.

This problem lies in the failure to train people in leadership and strategy earlier in their careers. Then when they reach the point of promotion to the Board, we are often unclear about what is expected. How often do we explain that we need the executive team to transition from being good specialists, to being insightful generalists? How often do we ask them to be able to interpret risk and make informed decisions about how it should be managed? When do we explain that this promotion means they must delegate what they currently do, and to oversee others to undertake that work instead?

Steer, don’t row

When working with potential directors I describe this as learning to steer, not row. These are two different skillsets and not all rowers make good coxswains. The first challenge is to be able to let go of the details, and instead to build a team they can trust to do their former work. This isn’t just about delegating individual tasks, it’s about choosing the right people and then creating the framework within which they can deliver what the business needs. It’s also about having the discipline not to leap back in when problems arise.

The second challenge for those aspiring to steer is to look up and see where you want to go. Good specialists can find this difficult, for it’s about understanding the way in which, for example, new regulations, social changes or economic trends will impact on their organisation. This means spending time beyond their own natural area of specialisation. One benefit of having been a Member of Parliament for eighteen years is that I have had to be alert to what’s going on in the wider world and interpret what it means and how different issues may interact.

This can, of course, be rectified through effective coaching and I can think of several people I have been able to help through this transition. However, we should all think about how more middle managers can learn about the role of director and the need to develop the ability not just to row, but to steer as well, long before they get the call.