Moving From Manager To Executive: The Right Talents For The Right Challenge

I recently attended a fantastic workshop conducted in part by our friend, and my former grad school roommate, Bob Lewis. The focus of the workshop was building a talent-based process.

One of the aspects he discussed is how not all talents 'work' the same at all levels. You need to gauge them relative to work role needs.

This is especially important when moving from manager to executive leader.

Many of us believe that if a little of something is a good thing, why then more must be better. In a talent context, this belief can run afoul of data. 

BEFORE we go further let's state for the record that more talent is, well, better. The question here is: are talents at lower levels good for performance at higher levels? Sort of like -- yeah I already did that so I must be good at it.

Answer: in fact not only is that belief incorrect it can create counter-productive behavior.

Bob's research using '360s' among managers showed that manager level matters. (More context!) Among lower or mid-mangers, having talent for aspects such as embracing challenges and driving results and collaboration and innovation was positively related to performance, while talent for transformational leadership and inclusivity and global perspectives was negatively related to performance. But for those who got promoted to senior leader roles, transformational leadership and global acumen and inclusivity were positively related to performance while embracing challenges and being innovative were negatively related to performance.

You can read that how you like; see Brendan's posts on making sense of behavioral data for technologists. It makes sense from a talent perspective: as the great leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith calls it, 'what got you here won't get you there.' You need to gauge what's going to help your managers be successful relative to the challenges they face, not relative to the names of the talents you assess or the fact that the person 'checked that box' at a lower level. This is especially important in cybersecurity, where success as a manager is irrelevant to success leading a function that increasingly melds with AI.

The take-away for talent-based leaders is this: you need to know what you need, where, and when. You cannot assume -- you must not assume -- that having talent, even similar types of talent, at lower levels translates to high performance at other levels. 

If you, as do we at Pythia Cyber, truly believe that talent matters at all levels when creating a high-performance work system, you must measure it correctly and intentionally.

Ask us how you can calibrate your talent model for the challenges you face.

(image credit: Wallpep, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)