I am writing this blog from my iPhone because my husband had mistakenly brought my laptop instead of his for his job interview today. This is the last stage of the process. It is an important day for him. Our laptops are of the exact same model, same look. I really should have done a quick check with him before he parted. I hope he doesn't have to open the laptop today in front of the new CEO!
Talking about CEO, I am reminded of how only a few people in the world can truly run a big company and run it well. Most will stay at senior management level at the most. There may be reasons for it. The obvious ones are CEO positions are fewer, more stressful and so not a common targeted career goal. But the less obvious yet important one could be narcissism, which says there is indeed a difference in personality between a true leader and those high achievers but mediocre leaders in how much they care about the growth of people who work with them, as reported in Harold Business Review.
A true leader is someone who is not only specialized quickly in early career years and implement the specialization, and then acquired a broad range of corporate skills throughout the career years and apply them well, but has to be someone who has the charisma to amass people's respect and confidence in their leadership.
I have seen many middle level and senior level managers who cannot handle even a simple improvement suggestion to how they lead their function. They attack back. They want to always win. The worst ones take revenge in hiding, under the fake innocent-looking mask. They associate only with subordinates who are either boot lickers, yes-men yes-women, or willing puppets for them. They tend to promote these people and suppress the others who do not fit into these categories. However, the others are always ordered to help produce results for the projects when the boot lickers and puppets cannot deliver data supported results since their forte is only in talking or doing presentations that make them "look good". These insecure leaders do not implement fairness and they don't know about talent management. All they care is to flock with people who stroke their ego by befriending them and praising them. Real talents are mismanaged and even ignored.
My advice is avoid becoming a mediocre leader described above even if you do not aim to be a CEO. Respect is earned. Others' confidence in your leadership is accumulated from their respect for you. Often times people think only about looking good in front of their own boss and place less importance on their subordinates. This is a deadly mistake. Contrary to what is believed, it is when many respect you, that is when you have the charisma solid enough that can also attract your boss' respect for you. This type of quality in you will bring you farther and higher. It will help you make the cut to be an elite leader. It is not the self-ego-boosting skills. Those will eventual fail you.
My company has rolled out the employee satisfaction survey for 3 years now. The plan is for Human Resource to facilitate each function in identifying the areas to improve on so as to improve the employee satisfaction score in next year's survey. On the surface this seems like a plan. Unfortunately in actual execution, it depends on the leader of each function. There is a limit to what HR can do. The quality of HR leadership will have an impact at company level but it is a different aspect of satisfaction. Ultimately whether employees are satisfied and motivated doing their job depends heavily on the quality of the leader of each function / department.
I wish my husband's meeting with the new CEO today will turn out well. He is a great person. Anyway I learned 2 things today. One, don't be half asleep when your partner is leaving home for an important day. Two, don't have the same laptop model and color as your partner's... :)
