There’s an old joke told at the Air Force Academy, where units are called squadrons and groups of squadrons are called wings. When people ask of certain officers, “What kind of wing commander is he?” the answer is, “He’s the best squadron commander I’ve ever met.”
There’s an old joke told at the Air Force Academy, where units are called squadrons and groups of squadrons are called wings. When people ask of certain officers, “What kind of wing commander is he?” the answer is, “He’s the best squadron commander I’ve ever met.”
This backhanded compliment should surface a question for leaders of any organization. Will what worked to make you a great leader at one phase in your career be enough to help you succeed at the next level?
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In our experience as executives of public and private companies, consultants, board members, teachers and students of leadership, we’ve seen hundreds of rising leaders ably guide their organizations to new levels of growth and performance only to hit a stall when the job gets bigger. Many leaders try to address the problem with managerial processes: Change reporting lines, divide up work differently, or run more analytics. In extreme cases, they may outsource, or call in consultants to rethink the strategy, organization structure, supply chain, or products.
These common approaches, which are about the complexity of the business, don’t get at the core problem, which is usually that you as a leader have not developed the new mindset and behaviors needed to master your changed situation as a leader. You’ve been focused on the technical mastery of your field and your business acumen instead of looking inward at yourself and thinking like a sophisticated leader. You have probably done so little of this inward thinking that you don’t even realize you’ve stalled in your career.
When we work with leaders, we ask them a list of questions that can help identify which categories might apply to them. If you answer mostly “yes” to these questions, it might be time to troubleshoot some options to work through the stall, expand your skill set, and reinvent yourself as a leader.
Purpose stall: Failing to engage people in your organization’s purpose
Teamwork stall: Are you seeing more clashes than collaboration happening?
Stakeholder stall: Neglecting to manage and influence your most important stakeholders
Leading change stall: Stumbling in delivering your messages during transitions
Authority stall: Commanding follower-ship by being an authentic leader through trustworthiness, empathy, breadth and balance
Focus stall: Burning out because you’ve lost focus on where to invest your time and energy
Development stall: Failing to develop your own leaders, the people who most depend on you
As your organization grows, you need to define and communicate purpose; engage and influence disparate stakeholders; invest your own time and energy in the right places; develop the leaders below you in order to achieve results through them; and lead change with passion and meaning. For most people, doing these things requires reinvention of yourself as a leader, not merely restructuring your organization and processes.
The first step for all of us is to realize that we need to start learning again—and learn new things as a leader. To enhance your leadership brand, to increase your authority, you can’t externalize the solution. You must internalize it and reinvent yourself and your capabilities as a leader. Only then will you avoid being a squadron commander in a wing commander’s uniform.
John Hillen is a leadership and strategy professor in the School of Business at George Mason University and a former U.S. assistant secretary of state. Mark Nevins is president of Nevins Consulting. They are the co-authors of What Happens Now: Reinvent Yourself as a Leader Before Your Business Outruns You.
