How Executives Develop

How is it that future executives develop on the job? Do certain experiences matter? Do they, as many have said, teach valuable lessons? Seeking answers to these questions has been the subject of continuing studies at the Center for Creative Leadership since 1982. To highlight four major conclusions of these studies (McCall, Lombardo, & Morrison, 1988):

•  Executives believe that much is learned on the job, and similar lessons (skills, values, and life perspectives) were reported in every corporation studied. Learnings that executives say made a lasting impact on how they manage appear to be pervasive.

•  The experiences that teach these lessons also have some predictability to them. Challenging job assignments, significant other people, hardships such as personal mistakes and failures or enduring hard times and setbacks, along with coursework at pivotal moments dominate what executives and managers recall as developmental.

•  There is a strong link between experiences and lessons learned. What is learned is not random; it flows from the specific experience. For example, a common challenging job assignment is having to turn around a troubled unit. Regardless of corporation (or nationality in some instances), managers reported similar learning patterns.

•  Having the experience is far from a guarantee of new learning. Only managers who continued to be effective added new patterns of management behavior; others who derailed often had the same experiences but missed the meaning. The derailed managers either relied too heavily on successful habits or exhibited flaws which acted as blocks to their learning. The essence of learning from experience, then, is in overcoming comfortable habits and personal quirks and making transitions to new ways of behaving.

For example, a common lesson for successful executives from tackling a too-big job is that development of others is a necessity. To learn to do something differently they focused on helping subordinates problem find so they could figure out what to do for themselves. In contrast, executives who later derailed relied on past habits—they focused upward, looking to the boss for help, then sought to control downward by instituting more systems and working longer hours.

Both groups had the same leadership challenge, both were elite groups, and the learning overlap concerning the development of others was 0%. The danger for any of us is that we will meet a new situation with old behavior, behavior that has served us well so far. Even for men and women who reach the top 1% of positions in their organizations, learning new patterns of behavior is far from automatic.

Overall, the CCL studies concluded that confronting variety in leadership challenges and overcoming our successful habits, quirks, and flaws to make transitions to new ways of behaving and thinking is what separated the successful and the derailed in a group of 400 executives. Those who benefited from experience could develop into more balanced people, able to be tough and compassionate, able to lead and let others lead when necessary. This flexibility was again only made possible by experience; it was hardly guaranteed, even for successful executives.

In the world executives describe, there are few constants. Skills and qualities are mutable—strengths become weaknesses, skills change, and the job context in which they play out is critical. Any future CEO comes into an organization with some basic platform skills—basic intelligence, good schooling, and probably some solid interpersonal skills. Then the forging process begins; regardless of the skills a person brings to the party it is the playing out of these skills and values and perspectives in tough situations that make the difference. During a career any future CEO will probably deal with hateful bosses, learn marketing in an unknown business while dealing with a balky staff and a decaying market share, shut down operations, fire long-term loyal employees, learn to understand hard-to-understand people so problems can be solved without bloodshed, commit numerous blunders and deal with shovel-in-the-face crises.

To speak of successful executives is to speak of those who learned their trade in the fires of experience. Their overwhelming response when explaining why an experience was developmental was that the stakes were high, the last person who tried it failed, their boss wasn’t helpful and so on. They grew and changed primarily when they had to.

Knowing what to do or demonstrating our skills or our humanity in low-stakes situations tells us little and teaches us little because our past habits basically still work. Significant learning seems to require significant pressure. New management learning would certainly be a snap for future executives if it weren’t for the stress and uncertainty which are also the same conditions that make new learning so precious because it’s so difficult to give up old habits and to overcome our numerous quirks.

Although any of us are loathe to give up the successful habits of the past, those who derail are particularly likely to cling to behavior that is becoming less effective. In the next section we’ll examine what these people look like and how they get to be that way.