San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching for Values-Based Leadership - Seven Deadly Habits

Seven Deadly Leadership Habits

Are you working in an organization where leaders failed the business and the people he/she serves? Are the leaders in your organization motivated to do the right thing regardless of economic consequences?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I working in a company where leaders are guided by core values?” Values-based leaders see others interests ahead of their own.

Are you an ethical leader who regularly displays good judgment?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where doing the right thing and not greed and self-interest is paramount to every action taken?

Sidney Finkelstein, author of Why Smart Executives Fail (2003), researched several spectacular CEO failures and their causes over a six year period. He discovered seven deadly leadership habits. 

Seven Deadly Habits

Finkelstein identifies seven patterns of faulty behaviors, each with a warning sign.  He arranges these into seven habits which are:  

Habit #1: They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment. On the positive side, this attitude is seen as highly optimistic. Optimism is a primary trait of successful leaders and it contributes to the ability to inspire and communicate vision. Carried to extreme, it causes one to lose touch with reality.
Warning sign: A lack of respect.

Habit #2: They identify too closely with the company, losing the boundary between personal and corporate interests. On the positive side, this trait means that an executive works long, hard hours over and above what is expected. However, carried to extreme, a leader gains a sense of entitlement to compensate for his or her sacrifices. It paves the way for unethical decisions.
Warning sign: A question of character.

Habit #3: They think they have all the answers. High intelligence and an ability to solve problems quickly and decisively are essential for leadership. When one forgets to ask for input or adequate information before making and acting on a decision, decisions can be inappropriate.
Warning sign: A leader without followers.

Habit #4: They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn’t completely behind them. While knowing who to promote and who to reassign or fire is an essential responsibility of any leader, decisions based on favoritism are irresponsible and risky. When the senior team is comprised of ‘yes’ people, there isn’t enough dissention to evaluate risks appropriately.
Warning sign: Executive departures.

Habit #5: They are consummate spokespersons, obsessed with the company image. While getting press coverage is seen as good for share prices, when CEOs appear to be promoting themselves more than the company, beware. Warning sign: Blatant attention-seeking.

Habit #6: They underestimate obstacles. Optimism is the underlying trait that works for motivating and inspiring, but carried to extreme, it can obliterate adequate risk evaluation and reality checks.
Warning sign: Excessive hype.

Habit #7: They stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past. The problem is, nothing stays the same. It is human nature to go back to what worked before when things get tough. But applying yesterday’s solutions to tomorrow’s problems can’t work. Knowing which problems to solve is a challenge for CEOs. Warning sign: Constantly referring to what worked in the past.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring leader who instills values-based leadership into the culture. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Ethical Leadership - Tracking Underlying Causes of Failure

Are you working in an organization where leaders failed the business and its people? Do the leaders in your organization do the right thing regardless of profit?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I working in a company where leaders are highly ethical?” Values-based leaders put others interests ahead of their own.

Are you an ethical leader who exhibits good judgment?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where doing the right thing and not greed and self-interest is your highest priority?

Tracking Underlying Causes of Failure

Sidney Finkelstein, author of Why Smart Executives Fail (2003), researched several spectacular CEO failures and their causes over a six year period. He found several patterns that explain what went wrong. 

At some point, every successful organization is a victim of its own success stemming from a distorted view of reality. Many executives saw the signs—competitors or customers were asking for a change—and yet they chose to ignore them.

Why did they fail? What are the patterns and warning signs? How can we detect the warning signs in organizations before it is too late?

Four Explanations

Finkelstein offers four explanations for CEO behaviors that lead to failure:

1. Executive Mindset Failures - Breakdowns in how executives perceive reality for their companies

2. Delusions of a Dream Company - How people within an organization face up to their reality

3. Lost Signals - How information and control systems in the organization are mismanaged

4. Patterns of Unsuccessful Executive Habits - How organizational leaders adopt unsuccessful behaviors

In the CEO failures he studied, Finkelstein emphasizes that it was not unforeseeable events that brought their companies down. In all cases, these CEOs of failed companies knew there was trouble coming, but they chose not to act.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring leader who provides values-based leadership. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Failed Leadership - A Look at the Dark Side

Are you working in an organization where leaders have failed to fulfill their promise? Do the leaders in your organization let their followers down?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I working in a company where leaders are doing the right thing?” Inspiring leaders put others interests ahead of their own.

Are you an ethical leader who displays good judgment?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where doing the right thing is your highest priority?

Executive Failure

Why have some very smart executives failed recently, bringing down whole companies, costing billions of dollars, and causing incredible losses to shareholders, customers and employees? What can be learned to avoid such huge failures?

Recent potential corporate bankruptcies in large part due to greed requiring government bailout at enormous cost reveal that some CEOs fail on such a scale that they bring the company down with them. These companies were led by executives with stellar track records of previous success.

CEOs are now lasting just 7.6 years in office on a global average, down from 9.5 years in 1995, according to consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. Two out of every five new CEOs fail in the first 18 months (HBR, January 2005).

“We live and work in a world where organizational failure is endemic—but where frank, comprehensive dissections of those failures are still woefully infrequent; where success is too easily celebrated and failures are too quickly forgotten; where short-term earnings and publicity concerns block us from confronting— much less, learning from—our stumbles and our blunders.” —Jena McGregor, Fast Company Magazine, February 2005

The same underlying explanations can be seen as the cause of failure for all businesses and their leaders—whether they occurred during the 80s, 90s, or more recently. While the corporate cultures of failed businesses vary widely, there are visible patterns of similarity across CEOs. 

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who is cares about people and does the right thing for the business enterprise. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Energetic Leaders - Energy Flows from Stories

Are you working in an organization where leaders have lots of energy? Do the leaders in your organization pump up their followers?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I energetic and fully engaged in my work?” Inspiring leaders are fully engaged and manage energy well.

Are you managing your energy as well as you can?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where everyone is energized and fully engaged?

Energy Flows from Stories

Your personal energy can reward you with wealth, innovation and fulfillment. Often, we fail to recognize how the stories we tell ourselves limit it. In some cases, our stories actually stifle energy, defeating our efforts before we even begin a task.

Before 1954, everyone thought running a four-minute mile was humanly impossible. After Roger Bannister broke that speed barrier, 16 other runners followed suit by 1957. The concept is best expressed in this way: “If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can’t, you can’t. Either way, you’re right.”

Let’s be clear: You cannot achieve everything you want in life with a simple wish and a bold statement. But through storytelling, you energize yourself and others by stating your desired purpose, what you know to be true and direct people to hope-filled action. Purpose-driven stories grounded in reality will lead you and others to energized action.

Some stories engage us deeply in our work, while others have the opposite effect. It’s not the time we spend on trying to achieve success that matters most. It’s the quality of the energy we bring to the time we have. This defines “full engagement.”

There’s an almost perfect correlation between engagement and happiness. The more engaged we are, the more alive we feel. Full engagement in a mission that matters deeply delivers a rich sense of meaning, depth and dimension to our work and personal lives.

Disengagement has the opposite effect, pulling us away from meaningful interactions characterized by passion and intensity. It pushes us toward safety, protection and disassociation.

By being engaged, we experience true happiness as we ignite our talents and skills. In short, we give our all. Clues about necessary course corrections are more readily apparent.

If you have a full supply of energy that you manage well, you can help yourself and others. There’s a positive ripple effect throughout the company as goals are successfully completed.

Ask yourself again: What stories am I telling myself and others that help energize purpose-filled action?

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who is fully engaged and who manages energy with stories. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Full Engagement Leaders - 4 Principles of Energy Management

Are you working in an organization where leaders have abundant energy? Do the leaders in your organization mange their stress effectively?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I replenishing my energy to become stress resilient?” Inspiring leaders manage stress and energy well.

Are you fully aware of how you are managing your energy?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where everyone can have time for rest, reflection and renewal?

4 Principles of Energy Management

The following principles from Loehr and Schwartz's excellent book "The Power of full Engagement" can be applied to corporate executives, as well as employees at all levels:

1. Energy has four dimensions: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. You must draw and maintain it from each domain.

2. Energy is best managed when there’s oscillation between stress and recovery. Stress, in this case, refers to “positive stress,” which allows us to stretch ourselves when using our talents and skills. But it must be balanced with recovery and rest. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know how to do this.

3. Pushing beyond our usual limits heightens our strengths. Building mental, emotional and spiritual capacities is similar to physical training that improves our strength or cardiovascular levels. We must push to move forward and grow.

4. Creating replenishing rituals and stories sustains and expands our energy. This is the key to recuperating and bolstering our reserves so energy is fully available to us.

If you expend too much energy, without getting sufficient rest and recovery, you’re headed for trouble. Life is not a marathon, but a series of sprints. Many of us, nonetheless, are always in a hurry because we think in terms of linear time. As a result, we forget to create quality moments. Racing against the clock and placing incredible demands on our energy reserves presumes we have unlimited resources—definitely a fallacious belief.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who manges energy well. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Leadership Engagement - Managing Energy With Stories

Are you working in an organization where leaders have high energy? Do the leaders in your organization mange their energy effectively?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I managing time or energy?” Inspiring leaders manage energy well.

Are you fully aware of how you are focusing your energy?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where energy not time spent creates extraordinary results?

Managing Energy With Stories

“To be fully engaged in our lives, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interest.”
— Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement (2003)

Most of us respond to workplace demands by putting in longer hours.

But it’s fundamentally flawed to assume that investing time in the things we care about will generate results. This belief, and the stories that flow from it, are simply untrue.

We can work long hours, have lunch meetings with direct reports and make the required phone calls, but if we’re exhausted, distracted, frustrated and angry when doing so, the positive return we’ve hoped for won’t materialize.

Nothing positive comes from putting in extra time without devoting high-quality, focused energy. Time has value only when it intersects with energy. High performance requires you to manage energy—not time—well.

Executives strive to sustain high performance in the face of ever-increasing pressure and rapid change, but they cannot make it happen without skillfully managing their energy.

In The Power of Full Engagement (2003), authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz assert we need to learn two new rules:

1. Energy is the fundamental currency of high performance.
2. Performance, health and happiness are grounded in the skillful management of energy.

And Loehr puts forth a third important rule:

3. The stories we tell ourselves and others drive the way we gather and spend energy.

Loehr’s new book, The Power of Story: Rewrite Your Destiny in Business and in Life (2007), expands on creating more energy for high performance. Faulty storytelling, he argues, drives the way executives gather and spend their energy:

“I believe that stories — not the ones people tell us but the ones we tell ourselves — determine nothing less than our personal and professional destinies. And the most important story you will ever tell about yourself is the story you tell to yourself.”

Tell yourself the right story, and the dynamics of your energy will change. Stories you tell will either create or sap your energy.

A perfect example is the old story about two shoe salesmen sent to Africa. The first one telegraphs back to company headquarters: “Situation hopeless: No one wears shoes.”

The second salesman reports: “Situation ideal: Everyone need shoes!”

Which story generates energy? Change your story, and you change your energy.

Workers in organizations like to complain about their workloads — a term that’s both oppressive and weighty. How can professionals focus on what really matters when they’re carrying around a “load” (work or otherwise)?

Change your language, and you change your story. You’ll ignite a new kind of energy. Take a moment to reflect on two recent stories you told yourself: one that gives you energy and one that depletes it.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who effectively manages his/her energy with stories. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Making Decisions – There Are No “No-Brainers”

Are you working in an organization where leaders make good business decisions? Do the leaders in your organization make decisions by first challenging old assumptions?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I objectively challenging any faulty assumptions?” Inspiring leaders make good decisions by thoroughly examining their assumptions for errors in thinking.

Are you fully aware of when you selectively seek out confirming evidence to justify your decisions?  Are you able to make better decisions by creating a workplace climate where the status quo is unacceptable?

There Are No “No-Brainers”

When it comes to business decisions, there are no “no-brainers.” Our brains are always at work, sometimes without our conscious awareness, and sometimes in ways that hinder rather than help us.

At every stage of the decision-making process, misperceptions, faulty assumptions and other mind tricks can influence the choices we make.

Highly complex and important decisions are the most likely to be distorted because they involve the most assumptions, depend on estimates and receive more input from myriad people.

The higher the stakes, the greater the risk of being caught in a psychological trap. These traps can work in isolation or in tandem.

A dramatic first impression may anchor our thinking, causing us to selectively seek out confirming evidence to justify our initial inclination. We then make a hasty decision, which establishes a new status quo.

And as the sunk costs accumulate, we become trapped, unable to find a propitious time to seek out a new, possibly better course.

The best protection is awareness. Forewarned is forearmed. If you cannot eradicate the distortions ingrained in the way your mind works, you can at least build tests and disciplines into your decision-making process that can uncover errors in thinking before they become errors in judgment.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who makes the right decisions. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Confident Decision-Making – The “Recallability” Trap

Are you working in an organization where leaders demonstrate excellent judgment when making crucial decisions? Do the leaders in your organization make decisions by recalling past events accurately?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I recalling past events objectively?” Inspiring leaders make good decisions by carefully examining their assumptions..

Are you sometimes hampered by your ability to remember past decisions accurately?  Are you able to make better decisions by creating a workplace climate where others are free to offer frank input?

The “Recallability” Trap

Even when we’re neither overly confident nor unduly prudent, we can still fall into the trap of basing predictions on memories of past events. Recollections of dramatic events leave strong impressions on our minds and can skew future decision-making efforts.

Anything that hampers your ability to recall events objectively will distort pending probability assessments.

The Antidote

You must take a very disciplined approach to making forecasts and judging probabilities:

• To reduce the effects of overconfidence when making estimates, always start by considering the extremes: the low and high ends of possible value ranges. This will help you avoid being anchored by an initial estimate. Then, challenge your estimates of the extremes, as well as those of your subordinates and advisers.
• To avoid the prudence trap, always state your estimates honestly, and explain to anyone who will be using them that they have not been adjusted. Emphasize the need for frank input to anyone who will be supplying you with estimates. Test estimates over a reasonable range to assess their impact.
• To minimize the distortion caused by variations in “recallability,” carefully examine all of your assumptions to ensure they’re not unduly influenced by your memory. Get actual statistics whenever possible, and avoid being guided by impressions.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who makes the right decisions. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for High Performance Decision-Making – The Framing Trap

Are you working in an organization where leaders exercise good judgment when making important decisions? Do the leaders in your organization make decisions by properly framing the problem?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I framing the question correctly?” Inspiring leaders make good decisions by framing the question in different ways.

Are you open to being challenged on how you framed a problem?  Are you able to make better decisions by creating a workplace climate where the way others frame a problem is openly considered?

The Framing Trap

The first step in making a decision is to frame the question. It’s also one of the most dangerous steps, as how you frame a problem can profoundly influence your choices.

The Antidote

A poorly framed problem can undermine even the best-considered decision. You can limit adverse effects by employing the following guidelines:

• Don’t automatically accept the initial frame, whether it was formulated by you or someone else. Always try to reframe the problem in various ways. Look for distortions caused by the way it’s framed.
• Try posing problems in neutral, redundant ways that combine gains and losses or embrace different reference points.
• Think hard throughout your decision-making process about how your problem is framed.
• When others recommend decisions, examine the way they framed the problem. Challenge them with different frames.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who makes the right decisions. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Effective Decision-Making – The Confirming-Evidence Trap

Are you working in an organization where leaders demonstrate excellent judgment and make the right decisions? Do the leaders in your organization make choices based on evidence?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I rigorously examining all the evidence when making decisions?” Inspiring leaders make good decisions by examining all of the known facts.

Are you honest with yourself about your underlying motives? Are you open to listening to others who have opposing viewpoints?  Are you able to make better decisions by creating a workplace climate where alternative viewpoints are encouraged and rewarded?

The Confirming-Evidence Trap

Leaders sometimes seek out information that supports their existing instinct or point of view, while avoiding information that contradicts it. This trap affects where we go to collect evidence, as well as how we interpret it. Consequently, we give too much weight to supporting information and too little to conflicting information.

The Antidote

Don’t necessarily disregard the choice to which you’re subconsciously drawn, but make sure it’s the smart one. Here’s how to put it to the test:

• Check whether you’re examining all evidence with equal rigor.
• Ask someone you respect to play devil’s advocate and argue against the decisions you’re contemplating.
• Be honest with yourself about your motives. Are you really gathering information to help you make a smart choice — or are you looking for evidence that confirms what you already think and want to do?
• When seeking others’ advice, don’t ask leading questions that invite confirming evidence — and don’t surround yourself with “yes” people.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who makes the right decisions. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.