The Case of Premature Leadership 

Brilliant guy. Wonder boy. What a wizard. He is like a mini-computer. What a find. Amazing talent. These are heady compliments being paid to many star performers within the company. They can do anything. There is this super salesman who can even sell snow filtering equipment to Saudi Arabia. There is this IT genius who has broken all records of innovation. There is this financial guru who has reduced costs and multiplied the profit margins. Wonderful. All accolades for them. They must be recognized and rewarded. They are rare talent that must be nourished. Inevitably they are put on the promotion pedestal as the company does not want to lose them. Many times they are promoted to leadership positions to manage teams.

Here comes the dilemma. To retain an outstanding performer, promotion to a leadership position is considered a rise on merit strategy. However the problem is that those who perform well individually are not necessarily those who will get others to perform brilliantly. That understanding is missing in organizations. Organizations are so star struck by the capability of the person that they assume he will be a natural leader. Not so. HR Flair study reveals that between 50% to 70% of leaders, whether recruited externally or promoted from within, face failure within the initial 18 months of taking on their new roles. That is a staggering statistic. A leadership failure has a rippling and crippling impact on the company, its people and its performance.

Let us look at why is there such high leadership failure rate:

1.The high IQ but low EQ challenge

Talent is a great find. Talent is rare. When we find it we want to protect and retain it. The tech genius who has developed a new App that has made sensation in the market is precious. All competitors are seeking him out. The organization rightly compensates him handsomely. That is normally not enough. Rare talent is being offered higher positions in other companies. To outdo them, the company quickly promotes the talent to a leadership position as the head of IT department. This move does help in retaining him or her but in many case losing a number of other people in the department. The absolute “no brainer” assumption by companies that if he can be so good with products he will be good with people is just incomprehensible. The talented new head of the department is great at doing the work but has absolutely no clue on how to get work done through others. He is not even aware that he is carrying a chip on his shoulder that people in his department resent. His inability to connect to team members, his micromanagement or lack of empathy cause other talent to diminish or quit. The department becomes toxic and the productivity nose dives. This premature leadership succession is an all killer. The person who is being given this position will get rude shocks of how his team has reacted to his style. His self-worth will go down and all the talent that the company was trying to preserve starts dwindling. He is not happy, his team is not happy and company is not happy. The reason is simple. Leadership is not an App that can be downloaded on a click. Leadership has to be learned. Leadership has to be practiced and leadership has to be developed.

2. The leader by “birth”

There are born leaders and there are leaders “by birth”. Take the case of a typical Pakistani company. The founder members have worked hard to establish a group of companies that comprise various sectors. They have expanded over time. The children of these families are sent to Ivy schools in America. They graduate and return. Upon their return, they are given “CEOship” of some of the group companies. And they live happily ever after. Not so. There are many flaws in this inherited leadership. Firstly the second generation owners, given companies on the platter, are neither passionate about them nor do they understand the need of blending in with the old and staid systems their family has installed in these companies. The people working under them are also neither inspired nor engaged by them and know that loyalty will be valued more than productivity. The family tries to intervene. The father has conflicts with the new ideas of change that the son wants to bring in. Despite many other talented individuals available with good leadership record in the company the legacy leader continues to head but not lead. Leadership is not a gene inherited by birth. Leadership is not a short cut by dint of ownership. Leadership has to be understood, experienced and earned and not bestowed upon.

3.Start up and end up

Another interesting category is the start-up companies. There is so much focus on how many of them come up with brilliant ideas and manage to raise huge funds. While we are all talking about the success of Airbnb and Deliveroo, we forget that they are exceptions rather than the norm. The facts state that 9 out of 10 startups fail especially in the tech industry. According to Koor and associates, 65% failures of start-ups are due to people problems. The young dashers with attractive ideas are able to lure the venture capitalists. Once they get the money their ability to convert the idea into a marketable business requires working with teams and building relationships. That is where they fall. The reasons for the failures are no vision of adapting to the market reality. Not getting the right man for the right job. Not being able to empower and delegate to allow others to have a business say. These are all traits of non-leaders. These are all characteristics of individual whims and fancies. Leadership is not about having a brilliant idea that will find its own way. Leadership is about having a great idea that is co-created and co-executed by a shared vision of the team.

Leaders have to be developed. Leaders have to be nourished. Most importantly leaders have to be coached. There is no shortcut to leadership. Leadership is not going to come from Chat GPT or through artificial intelligence. Organizations need to develop a mix of learning opportunities, coaching sessions and mentor sponsors to inculcate leadership maturity. That is the only way to prevent the rising incidence of leadership miscarriages in companies due to premature births.

The writer is a columnist, consultant, coach, and an analyst and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail,com