Effective Leadership–Aloof or Engaged?

Several years ago, I was asked by a client to spend some time with his key executives, providing him with feedback on their respective management styles. I was intrigued by this request; what was this CEO really wanting to know?

It wasn’t long before he divulged his concern. Bob, his Chief Financial Officer, had been serving in that role for about six months, having been promoted from a key accounting position. He had been highly competent in that job, and had been very personable. Everyone seemed to like him. However, since his promotion, he seemed to have experienced a personality transplant–and the change was uncomfortable for everyone in the company. At best, he was cold and distant; at worst, he was harsh and unkind. Bob’s competence hadn’t slipped, but his management style had.

I made sure that I met with Bob right away. I began by congratulating him on his promotion to CFO, and then asked him to share the similarities and differences between this new assignment and his job as a staff accountant. He listed the incredible number of additional responsibilities he now carried, and then said, “the old axiom, it’s lonely at the top is true.” In asking him to explain this in the context of his own experiences, he said, “Well, you know, as a leader, you must stay away from close relationships.”

More probing questions led Bob to share that in his prior jobs, he could afford to be friends with others, but now as CFO, he did not have the luxury of friends. He couldn’t allow himself to be seen as having favorites; he had to retain a veneer of toughness in dealing with others in the company. He went on to share some of the problems with which he was dealing, and once again, said how alone he felt in dealing with those problems.

Together, Bob and I defined his management style as aloof. Bob actually saw this term as complimentary; he expressed his conviction that every great leader had to transition from being “one of the boys” to the loneliness of leadership.

At this point in our conversation, I shared that in my career I have had the opportunity to lead enterprises through turnarounds. Like Bob, I had felt the burden of those responsibilities, and on the first of those experiences, I also felt the need to be aloof. I was quite young and I thought I needed to portray myself as seasoned enough for the job. I wanted to inspire confidence through my leadership presence. In effect, I wanted my subordinates to know that I would lead them to success, that I had all the answers to save the company. That was the image I wanted to portray, so I couldn’t let anyone see how vulnerable I really was. I had to be aloof!

This attitude led me to make important decisions unilaterally–and when my team failed to implement my strategies properly, my aloofness led me to blame them. They didn’t take well to that, and things began to take a downward spiral!

It wasn’t until I had a very honest heart-to-heart talk with a mentor from outside the company that I realized my aloofness from my people had cut me off from essential information and support that were necessary for solving our problems. That frank conversation led me to abandon my aloofness, replacing it with active engagement with the members of my team. The challenges we were facing were not resolved overnight, but eventually we (not just me) were able to rescue the enterprise.

I then shared with Bob that in a subsequent turn-around opportunity, right out of the chute, I made it my process to take every key executive–and many employees–for 1-1 lunches. I engaged, I asked questions regarding each person’s views on the company’s challenges–and how they would handle them if they held my position. And most importantly, I listened, I took notes, and I involved these stakeholders in our new strategies. And once again, the business was rescued.

My meeting with Bob was the first of several over the next few weeks. At first, he wasn’t fully convinced that he could succeed as a more engaged leader. But over time, he made his way back to his “old self.” The tensions eased and he found that it actually didn’t need to be so lonely at the top.

Author David Brooks, in his insightful book, How To Know A Person, makes this observation: “Remember that the person who is lower in any power structure than you are has a greater awareness of the situation than you do. A servant knows more about his master than the master does about the servant.” He also has much to contribute to the ultimate success of that master.