Great communicators have an appreciation for positioning. They understand the people they’re trying to reach and what they can and cannot hear. They send their message in through an open door rather than trying to push it through a wall.

—JOHN KOTTER

As an executive leader, you have crossed the chasm from management to leadership. At this level, you may not be the top person in your area, yet you are responsible for achieving crucial strategic objectives. You either report to the CEO or one of the CXOs. Your office may not be in the headquarters building with the CEO and CXOs, so you must be effective at communicating remotely. More than likely, you are the senior executive directing operations for a region, a product or service, or a group of customers. As a high potential, you definitely are in the hunt for your boss’s position.

So how can you earn that promotion? To start, spend most of your time on such leadership activities as creating a vision for the future, forming strategic partnerships, and developing your people. Reduce the time you spend focusing on achieving short-term goals and schedules. You lead a diverse team of managers; tap into their skills and experience. You will not get to the next level by micromanaging; instead, leverage your conversations to produce results that exceed forecasts.

The Executive Leader’s Role

Your role as an executive leader is operational and multidiscipline rather than functional. If you work in a corporation, you probably have bottom-line responsibilities and certainly have revenue goals or production quotas. In a government agency or nonprofit, you are responsible for delivering vital services or producing complex products for a category of people. In the military, you lead a multicapability fighting force or logistics unit with thousands of men and women under your command.

You are the primary strategist for your operation; and, in a strategy rollout, you are the one who allocates objectives and resources to your high potentials. Because you are the primary interface between the top leaders above you and the high-potential managers below, you must integrate the needs and concerns both of headquarters and of your people. Your power derives not from your position but from your people believing in you as a leader.

Conversations by Executive Leaders with Their Boss

Your boss, the CEO or a CXO, counts on you to make your operation run smoothly. You not only support her strategic goals but also must provide a high return on investment for the resources you control. In conversations with your boss, you will be expected to report succinctly how things are proceeding relative to plan, how resources are holding up, and new trends and issues that are developing in your area of responsibility.

• Building relationships. Do not hesitate to ask your boss to introduce you to stakeholders and to assist you in building trusted relationships. Become adept at multimedia communications, especially if you work in a different region than your boss. At times, you may find yourself caught between your boss and other leaders. Develop a long-term view of relationships that also satisfies short-term requirements.
• Developing others. Many of the conversations with your boss will focus on succession planning—your development as a leader and development of your high potentials. Be prepared to discuss those topics in terms of strategies for the future, the current performance of your staff, and changing market conditions.
• Making decisions. Provide timely recommendations to your boss to support strategic planning, and be prepared to implement decisions made at the boss’s level. Familiarize yourself with the process and criteria your boss uses to make decisions, and provide feedback that is valuable relative to strategic decisions.
• Taking action. Know what your boss expects of you and deliver results that meet or exceed those expectations. Any shortfalls at your level will have wide impact and be highly visible. Have conversations with your boss to ensure that your actions are in alignment with her expectations and with actions in other segments of the organization.

Conversations by Executive Leaders with Their Peers

In your role as an executive leader, your resources are not limited to those under your control. Look for opportunities to work with your peers as well. At this level, your conversations with peers should be about ways for all of you to be successful concurrently.

• Building relationships. We will be blunt: if you do not work effectively with your peers at this level, it is unlikely that you will be promoted to the next. The CEO and CXO leaders are assessing your ability and willingness to work with others to achieve the organization’s strategic goals—in all areas, not just yours. Think horizontally in building relationships and act vertically in producing results.
• Developing others. You have no authority over peers, yet their performance may affect your results. Your incentives may be split between how well you do and how well the organization performs, so you have a vested interest in your peers’ success. If a peer needs coaching, offer it if he has given you permission and you are genuinely concerned about his success. If your relationship is competitive, you might start with a conversation about why the competition exists and how to align your mutual efforts against your outside competitors.
• Making decisions. Be mindful that the decisions you make are likely to impact your peers. Avoid conflicts by meeting with your peers to find a third alternative when a decision you might make in your best interests seems contrary to theirs. Incorporate their inputs to make more powerful decisions.
• Taking action. In planning, look for situations where your actions can be leveraged with the actions of your peers. Discuss the extent to which you might share resources to produce superior results. After an action is completed, meet with your peers to determine how the teamwork and results could be improved.

Conversations by Executive Leaders with Their High Potentials

In conversations with your high potentials, you will find that their views are likely to be more management oriented than yours. After all, your job is weighted toward leadership, whereas theirs is still a blend of leadership and management. Assist the high potentials who work for you in achieving the right blend and realize that they may be reluctant to let go of skills that made them successful in the past. Toggle between a leadership and a management mindset during your conversations with them.

• Building relationships. Coach your high potentials to be proficient at building the transactional relationships required to surpass their goals. Encourage them to find mentors and to build trusted relationships to help them achieve future success. You should not be their sole source of mentoring and coaching.
• Developing others. You have three goals relative to developing your high potentials. First, develop their leadership and management mindsets, ensuring that the blend of the two is appropriate for their roles. Second, show them how to coach their direct reports. Third, include them in strategic conversations to grow their strategic thinking ability and their understanding of and commitment to the organization’s strategy.
• Making decisions. As an executive leader, you are—or should be—removed from most operating decisions and issues. Therefore, teach your people to use a structured decision-making process. Mentor and coach them through high-impact decisions and problem resolutions. Show them how to engage their people’s knowledge and experience in the decision-making process.
• Taking action. To reach their objectives, high potentials must get their direct reports to act in alignment. Help them allocate resources efficiently and urge them to ask for additional resources when necessary. Ask them to provide inputs to the strategy, and ensure that they understand the strategy and can implement it.

Your ability to conduct effective conversations with your boss, peers, and high potentials will be evaluated when you take the leadership assessment. As an executive leader, you should score high. After you complete the assessment, you will receive feedback that identifies areas where you are performing above, at, or below the executive-leader level. When you prepare your personal action plan using the online tools, you will use the results from the assessment to identify areas where you may want to boost your abilities. The personal action plan will focus on developing your leadership brand, taking the actions necessary to be more effective as an executive leader, and preparing you for a CXO position.