Robert Hargrove

In coaching many executives, I have discovered that often what drives them isn’t reaching their yearly goals and meeting the budget cleanly. No, almost all have a dirty little secret that they rarely talk about to anyone except a close confident. They want to move up the ladder as fast as possible in order to achieve greater power, wealth, and make a difference.

Unfortunately, even the most talented executives can find themselves stuck on the same rung for years (decades) due to leadership blindspots, or ignorance of how to master the political chessboard. If this situation describes you, than I would like you to invite you to read this series of blogs: Getting to the Top—Ten Tips for the Effective Executive.

Tip #1. Get The Kind of 360 Feedback That Rips the Blinders Off. One of the biggest issues that all upward bound executives have to deal with is the phenomenon of blindness. It’s possible that right now you are blind to or underestimate the strengths that you have that can help you get to the top. It’s also possible that you are blind or underestimate the weaknesses that can present a real barrier to your getting to the top. In both cases, it’s essential to get some meaningful 360 feedback that will help you to rip the blinders off and then take whatever appropriate action is necessary.

Feedback gives you an essential baseline for developing your own personal development plan, as well as for working with a coach or mentor. I have heard people say after getting their feedback: Hey, I am an environmental engineer, but I just found out that I am a born marketing maven and social networker. Or, I learned from some feedback I got that while people in my group see me as leader with great upward potential, the executives at corporate headquarters office don’t even have me on their radar screen.

Forget the kind of 360 that comes in the form of computerized tick sheets, check-the-boxes-one-to-five. In my experience, these are about as effective as going to an online Numerologist. They may give you a percentile ranking for how you stack up against others according to a homogenized list of corporate competencies, but they will not tell you very much about yourself.

Frankly, these kinds of 360 tick sheets are transactional in nature, designed to give hundreds of people in an organization feedback for a few dollars a head. The results are equally transactional. Part of the deal people make in having a job in a big company is to agree to do such things as filling out the feedback forms and reading the results from them… “I need to lead or collaborate better,” ho hum!

I always tell my coaching clients that we are going to be engaging in some 360 feedback interviews that are designed to rip the blinders off. Clients provide me with a list of ten or more people they would like to get 360 feedback from—bosses, colleagues, direct reports, etc. I then go around and fully engage people in an indepth dialogue about my client’s strengths, weaknesses, blind spots, and so on. I tell people giving the feedback that the intention behind it is transformational (big change) vs. transactional (little change).

You can tell right off the bat that people giving this feedback aren’t doing it in a transactional way because its part of what they are paid to do. They are doing it in a transformational way providing it as a gift to the person.

It’s inspiring to observe people put aside all other distractions of phone calls, emails, meetings, and take 30 to 60 minutes to tune into my client’s whole way of being around the job and come up with some powerful and profound insights that will help them not only to realize their personal and organizational ambitions, but also perhaps to make them a better human being.

For example, as one CEO said of his direct report, “Everyone knows Jim, our EVP, can get results, but what we don’t know is whether or not he has a big enough vision for this organization that would make us put him forward as the CEO. Also, we don’t know whether he can build positive energy to build a team vs. negative energy to scare people into doing what he wants.” When Jim heard this feedback, it turned his whole world view upside down.

When I was doing feedback inside the Pentagon for the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, people told me, “This person is a great at making deals and doing all kinds of transactions. Yet he hasn’t shown up as a real leader, as evidenced by the fact that he hasn’t provided a winning game plan for transforming this organization. People have to read the tea leaves to find out where he is going.” My client didn’t necessarily like hearing this feedback, but taking it on board proved essential in getting a promotion 1 to 2 years later to Assistant Secretary of Defense, in charge of all Acquisitions with an annual budget of $350 billion dollars.

So do yourself a favor, even if you have had 360 feedback in the past based on 360 feedback tick sheets, do what you gotto do to hire a coach who can give you the kind of 360 feedback that will allow you to put together a great personal development plan, and accelerate your climb up the corporate ladder and your ability to make a difference in your world.

If you can’t afford it or don’t have the budget to hire a coach, just try going around and getting your own 360 feedback by interview 5 to10 people yourself: What do you see as my potential? What do you see as my strengths and weaknesses? What do I do that will help me get ahead here? What’s holding me back?

Ten Leadership Blindspots that can keep you from getting to the top...

1. Not taking a stand
2. Getting discouraged by the complexity of the situation
3. Bogging down in eleaborate planning and preparations
4. The Lone Ranger Syndrome: no team or network
5. Being insensitive to your impact on others
6. Avoiding difficult conversations
7. Blaming others or circumstances
8. Treating commitments casually
9. Conspiring against others
10. Tolerating "good enough"

Next week: Tip 2. Getting to the Top: Developing Executive Power Presence