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The Leadership Challenge: Conquering Alibis

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John was a C-suite leader that had been recommended to us by his board of directors for a coaching engagement (Centered Executive Coaching: Leader Centered Coaching program) and participate in The Leadership Challenge development program.  The company he belonged to was growing at a +25% annual growth rate, but John’s area of the company was coming in short (<10%).  While John had many of the same talented people in his department (The organization had a cross-functional organization chart, allowing them to share team members based on assignment), leadership was looking for improvement out of John.

In our first initial interview, where we determine alignment of the coaching initiative as well as outline future steps, John was shall we say a little “defensive” of his performance thus far for the year. In fact, John was downright full of excuses when it came to his performance.  It appeared as though it was everyone but John’s fault for the department’s lack of performance.

With this lack of performance in mind, and John’s lack to accept responsibility, we provided him with an exercise on alibis. Here is a list of the most commonly used alibis we presented to him. Our instructions were for him to read the list, and examine himself carefully for each item and determine how many of these alibis were his own property (ownership):

  • IF I didn’t have a wife and family…
  • IF I had enough “pull”…
  • IF I had money…
  • IF I had a good education…
  • IF I could get a job…
  • IF I had good health…
  • IF I only had time…
  • IF times were better…
  • IF other people understood me…
  • IF Conditions around me were only different…
  • IF I could live my life over again…
  • IF I did not fear what “they” would say…
  • IF I had been given a chance…
  • IF I now had a chance…
  • IF other people didn’t “have it in for me”…
  • IF nothing happens to stop me…
  • IF I were only younger…
  • IF I could only do what I want…
  • IF I had been born rich…
  • IF I could meet “the right people”…
  • IF I had the talent that some people have…
  • IF I dared assert myself…
  • IF I only had embraced past opportunities…
  • IF people didn’t get on my nerves…
  • IF I didn’t have to keep house and look after the children…
  • IF I could save some money…
  • IF the boss only appreciated me…
  • IF I only had somebody to help me…
  • IF my family understood me…
  • IF I lived in a big city…
  • IF I could just get started…
  • IF I were only free…
  • IF I had the personality of some people…
  • IF I were not so fat…
  • IF my talents were known…
  • IF I could just get a “break”…
  • IF I could only get out of debt…
  • IF I hadn’t failed…
  • IF I only knew how…
  • IF everybody didn’t oppose me…
  • IF I didn’t have so many worries…
  • IF I could marry the right person…
  • IF people weren’t so dumb…
  • IF my family were not so extravagant…
  • IF I were sure of myself…
  • IF luck were not against me…
  • IF I had not been born under the wrong star…
  • If it were not true that “what is to be will be”…
  • IF I did not have to work so hard…
  • IF I hadn’t lost my money…
  • IF I lived in a different neighborhood…
  • IF I didn’t have a “past”…
  • IF I only had a business of my own…
  • IF other people would only listen to me…
  • IF *** and this is the greatest of them all ***

If this list looks familiar to you, you may have seen a version of it in the classic “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.  The list is tucked away in the back of the book, in a section that is must reading for any leader titled “How to Outwit the Six Ghosts of Fear.”

John came away from the exercise realizing that while many of his alibis were professional in nature, those that were truly holding him back were his personal ones.  A modification therein allowed him to move closer to established goals.

What’s the Point? Analyze your weaknesses and overcome them, instead of building alibis to cover them.

Why You Need an Executive Coach

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Col. Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I think I’m entitled to.

Col. Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I want the truth!

Col. Jessep: You can’t handle the truth!

This scene from A Few Good Men staring the iconic Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson represents why you need an executive coach to effectively run your business.  As a leader, we’ve seen time and again a search for answers.  A search that often times comes about when problems arise, or a change is needed.  Unfortunately, the truth is often times difficult to find.  It’s not that truth is elusive; it’s just that no one on your leadership team wants to tell you!

We recently conducted a poll of the executive coaches within our network on the topic of telling the truth. Roughly two-thirds of the coaches responding reported that their leadership engagements involved being a trusted advisor able to provide much needed objectivity to the C-Suite.

Trust is the primary reason that executives approach an executive coach.  Think of it as acting as a sounding board.  Leaders typically are under the false impression that there already exist sounding boards within the organization that they run and lead.  However, it’s this falsity that brings on strong negative reactions from leaders.

The common perception that friends and sounding boards exist can easily be debunked when you consider that as a leader, you have the power and authority to hire, reward, and fire.

May CEOs that we work with would agree with the statement; “It’s lonely at the top.”  While the view can be fantastic (think executive pay packages and perks), they also know that having the ability to open/close facilities, make difficult succession decisions, and deciding which business pursuits to attempt has tremendous impact on the lives of others.

With such territory, comes much stress… Enter the executive coach. The role of the executive coach is to enable the leader to make their best decisions, get their best results, and become the best leader possible (No short order).  In order to do so, the executive coach delivers the truth that the leader is missing;  The truth about what is happening currently.   The truth about what impact their future vision will have.  The truth about what the executive doesn’t want to hear, but must hear in order to move forward successfully.

You CAN handle the truth (You just don’t like it!)

As the leader of the organization, you must enable yourself to receive the truth.  That is not easy.  No leader likes to receive push-back, especially when we are working so hard to advance the organization in the right direction. But it is exactly this message, that of truth, that needs to be heard.

We worked with one leader that used to make all of the decisions himself all the time.  He had no sounding board to bounce ideas off of, nor would he accept one.  This worked well, until the economy turned and the water table surrounding him/his business lowered revealing the many tree stumps and boulders.  It would take careful navigation moving forward to not only keep his company afloat, but his role as the CEO.  He came to us with the goal of getting the proper direction, one that he knew could not be attained from his staff.  In the end, we provided the proper navigation and through his strategic execution moved the organization forward successfully with him at the helm.

Will you/your organization have such a happy ending?

What’s the Point: Leaders need objective/unbiased perspective in order to successfully lead.  Perspective provided by executive coaching leads to better decisions, better results, and better leadership.