Selker Leadership

Unlike the movie Trading Places, we do not play games for sport with the careers of future leaders by creating the conditions where one is pushed out and another, in this case, a most unlikely leader, is placed at the top.  We certainly would not create such a condition just for the sake of betting a dollar on the outcome. Mortimer and his brother played a very high stakes game with people’s lives, for a very small bet to determine whose social beliefs were right.

The more I think about this it seems that we inadvertently DO create an unintended game of sorts when company leaders and boards don’t take any action in planning for the future leadership of the company. This lack of planning is essentially a “bet” that things will work out, and that through the safety of a large search firm (really bad assumption here) the company will be able to find the very best leader to take them to the next level. They must place these bets since they have no other alternatives by the time a change in leadership is recognized as critical.

Many companies fail to do their best in planning for the act of “trading places” on leadership teams. The reason is simple – it takes a lot of work. First, successful planning requires keeping up to date as to where the leaders are in their growth and potential. It takes rigor and persistence to asses, understand and plan the developmental pathway for rising leadership teams. It takes even deeper assessment to know which leaders will be right for which key assignments. You need to be paying attention!

The most successful companies, in our experience, are those who are clear about their performance values. This is a behavioral essential.  Some companies focus their performance values in ways that create a leadership culture across the entire company. This approach ensures a deep pool of emerging strong leaders for the future. They then pay attention to the development of their leaders, give them career broadening assignments, and review their leadership cadres on a regular basis as they plan the leadership teams for the future.

“Mortimer’s bet” will continue to define the approach used by far too many companies.  They will place their bets based on social and personal biases rather than a deep understanding of the kind of leaders the company needs to reach their goals. They will take it lightly when their failures and biases become known. Perhaps some of them, like Mortimer and his brother in the movie, will feel the full force of their bad decisions by losing everything, including that last dollar.