Leadership happens at every level of an organization. But what does it take to be a leader at the executive level? While there are constants for all leaders, I recently heard a podcast that suggested there are specific considerations for an organization's most senior level leaders. They were resilience, influence, organization, scope, and speed of thought.
First, resilience was suggested as there are a lot of battles and executive must fight. With those battles will come losses and sometimes very public and potentially bruising hits. Therefore, senior level leaders must have the ability to brush off the loss and get back up again. Next was influence.
At the executive level score keeping is different. It's more about bringing people along than individual performance measurement. Accordingly, executive leaders need to have the ability to coach, inspire, and ultimately generate followership in high numbers, hence the concept of influence.
Next was organization. And while this one might seem basic, keeping one's self organized as a leader is essential, especially at the executive level where lots of information flows to and from. The podcast suggested in particular that due to the number of meetings executives go to that leaders should include treating each item on their calendar with respect. That is, to do the preparation necessary for each calendar item in order to properly manage large organizational territory.
Speaking of managing large organizational territory, executive leaders have responsibility for large scopes. While leaders up and down an organization manage large work loads, the executive level is unique due to the diversity of component parts, the size of those parts, and the risks associated with them. Scope management has therefore be in the executive leadership tool kit.
Finally, due to the amount of information and scope size of an executive leader's role, they must have a proficiency in speed of thought. With many decisions to be made in a day, executive leaders must have the systems and processes worked out internally to quickly assess a problem and provide the needed next steps from their vantage point. Often when an issue lands on the desk of an executive it has worked its way up through a host of organizational layers. Accordingly the executive may be presented with a short window of resolution in order to turn the issue back around, therefore they should have a certain speed of thought that prevents analysis paralysis or consistent delays. That is not to say gaining more information is not possible, as that in and of itself can be a next step, but speed of thought suggests such an outcome as more information should be arrived at with a sense of urgency instead of putting the issue back in the inbox and having such issues pile up.
Executive level leaders have a unique seat in the leadership structure. These elements can be important parts of that level of leadership, but are certainly not exhaustive. What would you include in such a list for high level leadership?
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