Posts Tagged leadership development

A few years ago, I worked with a very successful individual who had reached a crossroads in her career.  She had been promoted several times and had risen to a very high level in her organization.  But she was worried.

As I began working with her, she opened up and revealed that she was scared of being found out.  She felt like a phony because she had a couple of weaknesses that she had successfully worked around for years.

The more we talked, the clearer it became that this very successful woman had never taken the time to look honestly at these perceived weaknesses, and so she never understood them or addressed them.  Instead, she developed a series of effective work-arounds that helped her get by at each level.  Finally, she reached a level where she knew she could not hide them any longer.

So what to do?  I encouraged her to be absolutely honest about what she had been hiding from herself, and it turned out that several of her issues were easily addressed with some focused effort.

However, some of the other “weaknesses” were more likely related to physical issues that she had never understood before.  For these we worked out a plan to go to a specialist to see if there were underlying physiological issues that had gone undiagnosed.  Once she learned about these she was able to work out a treatment plan with her doctor and discovered a completely new way to function.

The message here is that having someone ask us the right questions can point us in new directions with a renewed opportunity to stop working around problems and finally resolve them.

Growing businesses often face issues that are left un-addressed for long periods of time.  Issues like succession planning, developing bench strength, and encouraging internal leadership development are often difficult to put in the priority list for time and valuable resources.

Family-owned businesses have exactly the same issues, but with the complicating twist of employing family members throughout the organization.  It is not unusual for these family members to have some confusion around some very important issues related to their progress in the company.

Here are 3 Key issues that family-owned businesses must address if they are to remain vibrant and alive into the 3^rd and 4^th generations:

Provide a Path.  Spell out with all family members who enter the business how they can utilize their skills to create a growth path within the company.  The path must be clear enough to provide them with a roadmap to the future, but flexible enough to enable them to change directions as they mature.

Develop Them. Without opportunities for professional development, even the most talented family member employees falter.  Providing a clear, effectively designed set of developmental tools is essential to help them grow into the next generation of family executives.

Be Honest. This is often the hardest to do, because it means addressing head-on, the hidden (or not-so-hidden) desires of a host of other employee family members.  Leveling with them about their long-term potential is crucial in avoiding family disagreements down the road.

The time spent actively addressing these three issues can help prevent a host of more complicated problems and add significantly to family harmony.