Many people think leadership is all about having the right answers at the ready. Yet, no matter how experienced you are — understand the importance of showing humility by asking questions and seeking out help.
Great leaders understand that it’s not easy to translate vision into reality. And they realize they can’t do it alone. The most effective leaders are those who seek out what they and their company need. That kind of growth mindset is ageless.”— Chip Conley, author of Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder
Traits That Lead Leaders to Failure
Having conducted in-depth interviews with 41 executives, the American Management Association uncovered seven common characteristics that most often lead leaders to failure:
- insensitivity to co-workers
- aloofness and arrogance
- the tendency to misuse information conveyed in confidence
- inability to control ambition
- incapacity to delegate assignments and promote teamwork
- inadequacy to staff effectively
- incapability to think strategically
Would anyone your team say that you do any of the seven items that frequently lead to failure? What can you do to improve? You are on the way to becoming an excellent leader if you:
- recognize that perception is a reality
- know that you are not perfect
- seek feedback
- are asking questions
- are taking steps to better yourself
Our ladder of leadership is a behavioural competency model for driving top performance at three corporate leadership levels. It offers insights as you move from the manager to the C-suite. As the leader, you need to be someone others consistently follow. It stands to reason that your people support you because they believe in your direction, integrity, and competence.
What are the ages you peak at everything throughout life?
An article published in Business Insider sets out a wealth of scientific studies have found that you do not peak at everything in your youth. The chart below shows plenty of cases where people reach top performance well into middle and old age. Interestingly, our “life satisfaction” is likely to peak at age 23 and then again when were 69!
Life is the Best Classroom
The expert in anything was once the beginner.”
Most people get wiser as they get older. A team of psychologists found that the oldest group, people who were between 60 and 90, that they studied got better than other ages:
- seeing things from someone else's point of view
- anticipating change
- considering multiple possible turnouts
- acknowledging uncertainty
- searching for compromise
These are attributes your team expect from you as their leader.
Age and The Effective Leader
The good news, there is not an age at which you will perform best as a leader. It is a matter of having the right talent stack — skills, knowledge, behavioural traits, wisdom and accomplishments — required for the role. Society continues to look for young leaders with stellar credentials. Notwithstanding that some of the elements of your talent stack develop with experience. Ultimately, those with wisdom have so much more to offer. Especially now. We need to value well-earned wisdom.
Additionally, studies have not found a direct correlation between age with wisdom, or wisdom with leadership ability. Moreover, researchers found that you can cultivate a skill for gathering wisdom as you age.
What is Wisdom?
The dictionary defines wisdom as the soundness of an action or decision about the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment. In advance the concept of a talent stack, I go further in defining wisdom. I see wisdom as the ability to draw on your skills, knowledge, accomplishments, along with your underlying behavioural DNA. You offer good judgment with the right balance of confidence and doubt.
Wisdom is about pattern recognition. Being wise requires cognitive and perceptual insight that picks up on similarities without being blind to differences. When we recognize patterns, our ability to see similarities and differences often exceeds our ability to describe them in words.
Some argue that the older you are, the richer the data set of experiences you can draw upon to recognize patterns. I'm afraid I have to disagree. If someone has one year of experience repeated thirty times does not equate to thirty years of experience. Moreover, experience may bring along baggage, not insight.
The most effective leaders are those who have an extraordinary appetite for new information. — Warren Bennis
In other words, excellent leaders are excellent learners of any age. I encourage you to follow the 5-Hour Rule: If you’re not spending five hours per week learning, you are irresponsible.
The Emergence of the Modern Elder
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” – Francis Bacon
During his time at Airbnb, Chip Conley recognized that a new kind of older leader, an “elder,” was emerging in the workplace. This modern elder uses their timeless wisdom to address current day problems.
Conley says it’s time we reclaimed the word “elder” — with a modern twist. “In a world that is changing at increasing speed, a modern elder’s curiosity is a life-affirming elixir for them and those around them.”
The elder’s “process knowledge” includes an understanding of people’s underlying motivations drives how they do what they do. Elders can be used in an advisory role to help fill the gaps and develop the next generation of leaders. These insights are precious at a company where the leaders may lack deep organizational experience.
Asking Questions
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” – Eugene Ionesco
Business needs to value wisdom as much as they do disruption. I am working with blockchain and tech sector startups. They are doing remarkable things. These startups have smart, digital leaders, “metric-driven” business roadmaps, and accountability charts. At the same time, most of them landed in his or her managerial role before they had any formal leadership training. Without fail, there are always some key elements missing.
You may have heard how every tech startup needs a hacker, a hipster, and a hustler. Ultimately, you need to Build Your Start-Up Team for Success.
We start by taking an inventory of the talent stack in their organization. Next, we do a gap analysis to ensure that within their company they have the full talent stack they need for success. I show them how to tap-in and use their available talent wisely. Wisdom is core to this discussion.
The Benefit of Asking Questions
According to a recent study conducted by the Harvard Business School, asking questions in the workplace may cause others to view you as more engaged and intelligent. Although some may fear retribution, appear incompetent, or seen as annoying, an inquisitive nature is often a sign of competence.
Information sharing is very important in organizations. If everyone sat in their separate silos and never interacted with each other, they wouldn’t learn anything from each other. By not seeking advice, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to learn from your co-workers,” Alison Wood Brooks, Harvard
This effect is even stronger among people who feel powerful, Professor Gino found in another study.
People who feel powerful tend to resist the advice of others, because they experience the advice as a threat to their own claim to power and feel competitive with their advisers.” Francesca Gino, Harvard
Although a fair amount of research about how people respond to advice has been published, much less has been done on seeking learning feedback. People commonly believe that asking for help is inconsiderate — we don’t want to bother others. However, the findings suggest that unless you are feeling anxious, there is very little to lose if you seek advice. Being asked for advice is flattering. Asking someone to share his or her personal wisdom, advice seekers stroke the adviser’s ego and can gain valuable insights.
When you are asking questions, people do not think less of you — they actually think you’re smarter.
DQ and EQ
DQ (digital intelligence) a prized skill in most companies today. However, it is unreasonable to expect young executives to have the same EQ (emotional intelligence) as someone who has gained this wisdom over many years. I establish mentor relationships, where the participants are mentoring each other. They trade some EQ for some DQ. Both sides of these relationships find this arrangement to be helpful.
The Modern Elders Can Play Many Roles
Coaxing the genius out of a younger leader is one of the essential roles. With their vast experience, an elder can see things in younger leaders that they have already overcome themselves. As well they look at the characteristics and challenges that make each young person unique. Moreover, when accompanied by behavioural DNA insights about of the young leader, they help ensure the unique strengths of a youthful CEO shine through. Also, the elder can assist in managing the CEO’s challenge areas. This coaching protects the CEO and the company against failure.
Move fast and break things.”— Mark Zuckerberg
In a series of experiments on wisdom, Darrell Worthy, University of Texas, found that:
- younger adults tend to make faster choices that lead to more immediate rewards
- older adults are generally more adept at making strategic decisions that take the future into account
This mindset reinforces the stereotype that younger leaders may be more suitable for organizations that need to move quickly, untethered by tradition or caution. Moreover, older leaders may be better suited for stability and optimization.
Intergenerational Collaboration — The Ultimate Disruptor
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” – Rosalynn Carter
David Waldman and David Bowen, Arizona State, offer new ideas for leaders and their development in the Academy of Management Perspectives. Specifically, they suggest methods or strategies by which leaders can learn to handle paradoxes effectively. Paradoxes involve different yet interrelated components that exist simultaneously and persist over time. They also come in two flavours.
Paradoxes inherent in leadership practices:
- maintaining a strong sense of self while simultaneously keeping humility
- maintaining control while simultaneously letting go of control
Paradoxes inherent to organizations:
- stressing continuity while simultaneously stressing change
- pursuing corporate social responsibility for the strategic purpose of enhancing profits while simultaneously seeking corporate social responsibility for morally based purposes
On a more granular level, some elements of the leadership paradox include:
- wisdom or ambition
- incremental or radical
- managed or unmanaged
- structured or unstructured
- people or processes
- youth or experience
- digital intelligence or emotional intelligence
Polar views are helpful to set the goal posts. Above all, landing at the right place is situational. Offen building bridges across the continuum, including generational, is a healthy path forward.
Celebrate Disruptors
Today we celebrate the young disruptors. Ultimately, the intergenerational collaboration will be the ultimate disruptor.
To become the world’s most respected economic utility to manage systemic risk, reduce unnecessary harm, share knowledge, preserve and sustain natural resources.” —CoEngineers’ Vision
I am the Chief Integration Officer of the Integrated Engineering Blockchain Consortium. We are building CoEngineers, a decentralized validation network for engineers. It provides a way to measure and help articulate the real value of engineers and their benefit to global society. Our diverse network fosters intergenerational collaboration to serve the public good. This strength will be the ultimate disruptor that Co-Engineers will create.
Good ideas come at any age, but it takes experience to turn them into success stories. Steve Jobs was 21 when he helped found Apple, but he was a 43-year-old CEO when the company created the iMac.”— MIT Management study
The Appreciative Inquiry
Teams, organizations, and society evolve in whatever direction we collectively, passionately, and persistently ask questions about. Appreciative Inquiry advocates collective inquiry into the best of what is to imagine what could be.
The adaptive leader develops the skill of asking clear, adaptive questions. These questions lift our thinking. You might find this checklist from Gervase Bushe of Simon Fraser University to be helpful in forming adaptive questions.
- Great questions are surprising. They are questions that people have not discussed or thought about before.
- They are questions that cause people to reflect and think.
- They touch people’s heart and spirit. They are questions that are personally meaningful and touch on that most matters to them.
- They prompt stories that will build relationships. As a result of the conversations these questions engender, people feel closer to each other. A greater sense of vulnerability and trust is achieved.
- They force us to look at reality a little differently. Sometimes reality can be reframed by the way a question is asked.
You Can’t Do It Alone
In our fast-paced world, many of the breakthrough ideas are coming from young people. However, great leaders understand that it takes excellence in execution to turn these ideas into reality. It is not easy to translate vision into reality. It requires planning, acquiring the resources, and implementation. Effective leaders realize they can not do it alone. They need to figure out what they and their company need. To achieve big goals, ‘why’ is necessary but not enough. A leader needs the “who” to take care of the ‘how.’
The separation between the great companies and the “me too” happens on their ability to execute.” - Robert Herjavec
Asking questions and seeking help by including wisdom and intergenerational collaboration is the kind of growth mindset that is ageless. Moreover, it represents a higher form of leadership.
Challenge — What's Right For You?
Solution = Leverage Your Talent Stack + Build Your Career Capital
Identify your unique behavioural strengths, build your career capital and leverage your unique talent stack for lifetime success.
- Grow your leadership potential by targeting your critical developmental needs
- Determine your crucial career success factors, allowing for more focused efforts
- Discover your best and most successful career direction
- Find out about your strengths and interests in different career areas
Knowing yourself is the first step to being happy. Moreover, staying happy is an ongoing process of regrounding your long-term goals with your current objectives. When those align, you’re on the path to a job you can adore. Know when to find a better job as your best option may be to fall in love with your job (again) We also offer a personal development plan to help you achieve career success and satisfaction.
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