Ascending to the C-suite
A new survey finds that executives who move effectively into the
C-suite are communicating priorities, valuing their teams, spending time on
culture, and understanding their unique leadership role.
Nearly half of top executives say they weren’t effective at earning support for their new
ideas when they moved into C-suite roles—and more than one-third say they have
not successfully met their objectives during their tenures. But even successful
transitions1
didn’t require new executives to have all the answers, and certainly not within
their first 100 days in the job. These are among the key findings from a recent
McKinsey Global Survey on executive transitions,2 which asked C-level respondents how they
managed the business, culture, team, and self-management aspects of their new
jobs.
While there is no single predictor
of success in a new role, the responses indicate which practices link most
closely to an overall effective transition. Organization-wide alignment, for
example, is critical. Executives who made the most successful transitions say
it was just as important to align their organizations on what not to do
as it was to explain what they would do in their initial agendas. They
relied more than others on their initial team of direct reports and spent more
time learning about organizational culture, which all executives rate as the
hardest area to understand. What’s more, these executives received more support
and resources from their organizations and were better able to spend their time
and energy understanding the issues that they were in a unique position to
influence.
The C-suite challenge
Making a successful transition to
the C-suite is difficult: nearly half of respondents say they weren’t
successful at aligning others around their initial objectives, and more than
one-third admit that they have not successfully met their overall objectives
for the role. Executives report the same difficulty regardless of their
transition’s context: whether they made a lateral move or were promoted,
continued in the same function or led a new one, or were internal or external
hires.
This isn’t surprising, given the
high expectations of new executives, the competing demands they must balance,
and the fact that many of them feel they don’t have much practical support.
Only 27 percent of respondents believe their organizations had the right
resources or programs in place to support their move into a C-level role.
Indeed, the responses from executives who have made successful
transitions (those who say they successfully aligned others during their
transition and have successfully met their overall objectives) suggest that
support has a role to play: these respondents are twice as likely as all others
to say they received company support.
There’s no clear deadline, though,
for executives to move effectively and comfortably into their new roles Roughly
one-third of respondents (the most successful ones, as well as all others) say
it took them more than 100 days to feel fully comfortable in the role. And
regardless of the transition’s outcome, most respondents say it took them
longer than three months to determine solutions for the key strategic questions
they identified when their transitions began.
When asked about different aspects
of their transitions, executives rank business-related activities among the
most important to the transition’s overall outcome. The largest share say it
was very or extremely important to create a shared vision and alignment around
their strategic direction across the organization. This is also among the most
difficult aspects to carry out: just 30 percent of all respondents (and 39
percent of those reporting successful transitions) say it was easy to create a
shared vision in their new role.
Indeed,
executives reporting the most successful transitions stand out from the rest in
how they built buy-in and communicated a vision to their teams and their
organizations. These respondents are nearly twice as likely as others to say
their organizations understood their initial priorities well—and were much more
effective at communicating which initiatives would not continue, given those
priorities. The most successful executives also say that 69 percent of their
direct reports actively supported their initial strategic directions, compared
with 60 percent of direct reports for their peers.
Getting the team right
Regardless of the outcome, many
C-level executives acknowledge that they did not have all the answers when they
began their new positions—and that their direct reports played a valuable role.
Most executives (including those whose transitions were a success) say they
relied on their direct reports’ input when determining solutions to the
strategic problems they faced at the beginning of their tenures. When
identifying which activities were most important to the transition’s outcome,
86 percent of respondents cite mobilizing teams to function as a high-performing
group, second only to creating a shared vision.
Executives tend to keep their
inherited teams intact: 74 percent say at least half of their initial reports
were still on their teams by the end of their transitions, and the most
successful respondents made even fewer changes to their original teams.
Respondents also believe it’s important to move fast to get the right people on
their teams. A majority say their final teams were in place within the first
year, but they still wish they had moved more quickly. While with hindsight,
executives would have moved faster in every area of their transitions, they are
most likely to say they should have acted quicker to put their teams in place.
While they wanted more time to build
their teams, the executives who transitioned successfully are more likely than
others to say they devoted the right amount of time to understanding the
organizational culture. But cultural issues are difficult to act upon and to
get right. Across the four areas of transitions we asked about, both internal
and external hires agree that they most often struggled with implementing
material changes to organizational culture.
Part of
the challenge posed by culture is that many executives believe they don’t have
accurate ways to measure or even describe it. This is especially true for
external hires, 42 percent of whom say it would have been most valuable to have
more information on culture during their transitions, compared with 29 percent
of internal hires. Of all respondents, nearly half say that during their
transitions, they assessed the effectiveness of their organizations’ cultures
less rigorously than their business initiatives, or not at all.
During transitions, executives also
struggle with self-management. Just over half say they spent too little time
preparing for the personal demands and their own readiness in the new position.
The executives with the most successful transitions, though, spent more time
than others preparing for their roles, and they are 1.6 times as likely as
others to report proficiency at the key skills for their jobs. What’s more,
they report doing a much better job than others of understanding their unique
role on the executive team. These respondents are also twice as likely as their
peers to say that during their transitions, they had time to focus completely
on the issues they alone were in a position to influence.
- Be purposeful.
The four aspects of an executive transition—business, culture, team, and self—require
different tools and resources to successfully engage with each one. New
executives might face a bias to focus disproportionately on issues that
receive external scrutiny (delivering short-term business results, for
example). But they must think holistically about their new
responsibilities and identify the nuances of each aspect so they can take
purposeful action. Crafting a clear vision of strategic priorities,
building their teams in a timely way, rigorously assessing the
organization’s culture, and spending enough time to prepare for the
personal demands of the job will all be essential to success in a new
role.
- Create organizational support. The results suggest that executives who make the most
successful transitions received important resources and information from
their companies. Yet, in our experience, few organizations have
established internal capabilities or ownership for the transition process.
Given the high price organizations pay for every failed transition, more
of them should develop a systematic approach to support new leaders. The
most successful approaches we’ve seen blend in-class learning with other
interventions, such as personal coaching for the first 6 to 12 months on
the job.
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/leading_in_the_21st_century/Ascending_to_the_C-suite?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck-oth-1504
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