Become a "real executive"
3 skills for executive leadership
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A title does not make a Vice President—abilities do.
I was a “Vice President” at several startups that failed. Then, I was subsequently laid off twice as these companies shrank. I was a competent leader with a nice title, but I was not a real executive.
The proof was in the pudding: I lacked the significant leadership skills that may have saved those startups.
The simple lesson is that “VP” means different things at different size companies- all titles do. At these smaller startups, I became a VP because I was among the most senior managers there, and I was the highest leader in my function. However, the firms were small. I didn’t have to be more senior than many other people to rank high.
When I came to Amazon, this was not the case. So, they put me back in a Senior Manager role. It took me eight years to get back to the VP title, having to pass through “director” first.
The difference was that receiving the VP title this time meant I had actually developed the skills to lead a whole business at scale. The title was not just a symbolic reward for taking a risk on a startup.
If I had had the same skills when I worked in those startups that I do today, I could have taken a far more active role in fixing their problems, avoiding layoffs, and leading them to success. In short, I could have been a much better executive. A real executive, not a symbolic one.
Let me share how you can become a “real executive” faster than I did by breaking down:
The difference
Developing strategic vision
Lead the whole enterprise
Leading with influence
The Difference
The primary difference between management and executive leadership is that executives need to set a strategy for the business, while managers mostly receive that strategy from above. Then, they must influence other executives who are on the same level or even above them in the business structure. Delivering for your own function is no longer enough because the executive team rises and falls together.
While some of these elements were certainly present in your previous leadership position, at the executive level you hit an inflection point where your job becomes almost exclusively about strategic direction and alignment. You are delegating the execution of not just tasks, but of entire projects or initiatives, to senior leaders under you.
The other significant change at the executive level is that you have to take responsibility for the entire business's success. You may own a single function, like engineering or sales, or own only one business out of several, but if the company fails then you fail with it.
In my coaching practice, I frequently work with executives in failing companies. They may be doing well themselves, but they are standing on a sinking platform as the broader business fails.
To prevent this, an executive must set a vision not just for their own group, but for the entire company or division.
Then, they must influence others to execute on it.
Here’s how…
Developing Strategic Vision
If you are a director, manager, or even an IC, you have been executing the strategies and projects of executives above you. To take on an executive-level role you must become the one to set these strategies.
To begin, let’s define tactics, operations, and strategy.
Tactics are the low-level day-to-day actions that move efforts forward. First-level managers normally work at the tactical level, focusing on completing work and projects.
Operations are the middle level. They are the combination and coordination of the tactical efforts to achieve an intermediate objective. For example, shipping a feature, winning a contract, or opening a new location. These examples do not create a new business for the company, but they are big milestones that are part of a larger strategy.
Pulling together the tactical work of multiple teams in order to deliver a big objective is often the work of “Senior Managers” in larger companies. If you are in any kind of middle management today, you likely work at this operational level.
Strategy is the highest, broadest level. It is the deliberate synchronization of many operational results to achieve a desired vision or end state. Creating the strategy and arriving at that end state is the mandate of the executive.
To create such a strategy, you must understand your company’s overall business approach and then figure out how to extend it to a new opportunity.
Tech companies, banks, manufacturers, and consulting firms all approach business in different ways. So, these companies will all have different approaches to adjusting their businesses to new opportunities and risks. In short, they will have different strategies.
If you do not understand your company’s business model, you can start paying attention by reading what the CEO, the board, and the press say about the company's direction. You can also ask leaders above you about the corporate strategy so that you can fit your strategy into it.
As you go about learning the strategy, note that there are generally two types of strategies - planned and emergent.
Planned strategy is when executives think through a new development and make a deliberate plan to start a new business. Examples include Apple deciding to make phones or Amazon expanding into web services.
Emergent strategy is when we recognize something that is already happening in our business and move to do more of it. For example, Starbucks realizing that people liked iced coffee and other cold drinks. What began as a hot coffee shop now sells more cold drinks than warm ones.
The final thing to understand broadly about strategy is that it is the long game of the business.
Jeff Bezos said: “Be strategically patient and tactically impatient.”
What this means is that valuable strategic goals often take many years, if not decades. At the same time, being tactically impatient means trying to get as much done as possible daily. The idea is that the daily execution compounds, so a little more done daily adds to bigger results over years and decades.
In order to benefit from these compounding results, you need to influence your organization to adopt the strategy you have developed and then execute it at the operational and tactical levels.
This requires you to lead the organization in all directions.
Lead the Whole Enterprise
As a first-level manager, most of your focus is “downwards” into your team. Your main job is to organize, motivate, and support your team members in completing tactical work.
At the executive level, your focus needs to include your peers, the C-suite, and external parties. You must know how to lead the team below you without oversight or assistance, but simply leading your own team is not enough. You also need to think and act on behalf of the whole division or company, which means considering the needs of other teams and actively helping them when you can. It may also mean pivoting away from your needs as a leader in order to prioritize the needs of the broader business.