How often have you seen a new senior leader drop in an organization, turn it around in 12-18 months and then they’re gone in less than 3 years? What went wrong? The reason lies in what we ask of these leaders; we want short term gains without focus on a sustainable outcome. In The CEO’s Compass, the outcome is the true north each leader should be navigating to or Peace of Mind.
How to Identify a Transactional Leader
The CEO’s Compass Assessment grades you on 7 compass points and the average of those become your Peace of Mind Score. For the scenario above, the situation lies with you hiring a Transactional Leader vs. one that is using a compass. Here are the signs you hired a Transactional Leader:
- While this leader has a highly articulated Purpose and is laser focused on Performance Metrics, they fall short of ensuring it aligns with the team throughout the organization. They talk a good talk, but the transactional person in the organization only knows their job and not in the context of the overall Purpose. Just kick the boxes next time you go to Customer Service or IT department and if they speak in terms of a KPI (Key Performance Indicator). See what their response is and if they can only describe their task vs. something like “I’m here to deliver a memorable experience”, then you have only a transactional leader. Low scores on developing people around a purpose detract from the Performance.
- This leader invests in project teams and technology to get rapid results via having the right Platforms. They’re cheered as a results driven leader, but the result is offset by a lack of understanding of the Past & Pride of the People. You see, humans need to interface with technology to get a desired result and when things are going well, the leader is cheered for efficiency improvements. The system fails however, when the environment changes, mergers, downsizing or a significant market change and the results falter.When the environment changes and a little bit of chaos is introduced, it is the humans who we need to count on to get back on track. When the leader treats the humans as just transactions as part of technologie efforts, the people are heads down and only perform a transaction. Had we taken the time to know them, their culture and their unique intellectual property, we could have built much needed trust to get through transitional times.
- The results of this assessment show an average investment in the Process of coaching team dynamics and that is the role of a transactional leader. The problem with this approach is they fail to develop individual skills at the People Level. We assume people have the needed skills when we hire them and they may. But often we fail to identify the skills needed for the next level or if the environment changes requiring new skills. It is at those times we need a leader who values the development of people as a critical element of their leadership and knowing the results will come. When organizations don’t instill a culture of Personal Development as a leading indicator of a leader’s success, we never achieve Peace of Mind, hence the score in this example of 2.2 on a scale of 1-5.
So I ask you, knowing what you know now, what to do in order to get back on track? If you’re not sure, why not take The CEO’s Assessment for yourself by direct message or email me to get the tool and then book a call to see how you can achieve Peace of Mind.
And if you’d like to find out more about The CEO’s Compass – Your Guide to Get Back on Track and all the tools used, sign up for our wait list to learn more about the book and when it becomes available.