By Joann S. Lublin
Evan Hanlon wishes he had sought help before his big career leap
from managing 80 staffers to overseeing 500 people.
His stressful 2017 promotion at GroupM, the media-buying arm of
WPP PLC, felt "like going from being an air-traffic controller to
being a pilot," Mr. Hanlon said.
It took a year before Mr. Hanlon received guidance from a coach,
brought in by the company after he clashed with several executives
outside his new area. Getting coached sooner "would have been
useful on-the-job training for that big leap," he said.
Many executives are making big leaps these days. They land
complex, powerful posts where they command dozens, hundreds or even
thousands of associates for the first time. But a vastly larger
role might overwhelm the unprepared, several executives and
management specialists say.
"Executives taking such stretch assignments fail often without
proper support," said Rose Fiorilli, an executive coach. Successful
leapers connect well with key colleagues, delegate extensively and
lead transparently, according to executives who have leapt and
their coaches.
"This type of move may become more popular, given employers'
increased emphasis on rotational assignments and decreased number
of management layers," predicted Kevin Martin, chief research
officer at the Institute for Corporate Productivity.
More companies now ease leapers' tricky transition through what
is known as acclimation coaching, career advisers report. Ms.
Fiorilli helps executives adjust after big leaps roughly twice as
frequently as five years ago.
Others, such as Mastercard Inc., offer executive-development
programs that can help identify "potential blind spots that might
derail [executives] when they step into a bigger role," said
Michael Fraccaro, chief people officer of the global payments
company. Mastercard's program provides individual coaching and
connects up-and-coming executives within a company.
A business that expects leaping bosses to sink or swim "is
probably not a place you'd want to be unless you like sinking,"
said Lisa Kohn, Mr. Hanlon's coach and a partner at Chatsworth
Consulting Group. Group M retained her after Mr. Hanlon's conflicts
with colleagues.
Mr. Hanlon said they accurately viewed him as tough to work with
because he arrogantly defended his broadened turf. He blamed his
inexperience and desire to rapidly demonstrate that he could handle
500 employees.
He met face-to-face with 10 GroupM peers after they gave Ms.
Kohn anonymous feedback about his leadership. Mr. Hanlon promised
greater collaboration and patience. He said he fulfilled his pledge
by touching base with those executives after difficult meetings,
for instance.
In March 2019, GroupM elevated Mr. Hanlon to U.S. chief strategy
officer. This month, he became chief product officer for Essence, a
GroupM agency.
For AJ Bernstein, a big leap has worked well partly because she
delegated duties to an unprecedented degree. She became a vice
president of Wm. Bolthouse Farms Inc. last October, eight months
after the food producer recruited her for the position of senior
strategy director.
Ms. Bernstein started managing 42 staffers, compared with three
previously. The new marketing executive also supervised people
outside her expertise for the first time.
Aided by a coach, Ms. Bernstein said she soon recognized that
shedding certain tasks would free time for important, reflective
thinking. She elevated a lieutenant to be her chief of staff and
handed over numerous projects. She is the only Bolthouse vice
president with a chief of staff.
Stacey Tank aimed to be a highly visible leader when she landed
her first major operational role at Home Depot Inc. in 2018. She
took the helm of a U.S. unit that arranges home renovations and
repairs.
Overseeing its 5,000 workers represented a huge leap. Ms. Tank
previously led 100 employees as the retailer's chief communications
officer.
"I knew everyone's names," the executive recalled. "I knew about
their families."
To connect with her enlarged workforce, Ms. Tank said she
conducts virtual town-hall meetings every month where associates
"can ask me anything they want." She and management team members
get grilled about issues such as product launches, career
advancement and an internal home-design app that sometimes
crashed.
Kelly Grier pursued transparent leadership further after her
2018 big leap at Ernst & Young LLP. She directed 12,000
staffers at the U.S. arm of the global business-services firm until
EY promoted her to take charge of the Americas -- and more than
75,000 employees.
Ms. Grier says you can't lead that many people unless they trust
you: "They need to believe you're holding nothing back."
The coronavirus pandemic has intensified the executive's
commitment to extreme transparency. Among other things, Ms. Grier
activated EY's crisis-response team for her 31-country region on
Feb. 25 and suspended business travel days later. She conducted
internal video webcasts about the virus on March 20 and 24.
She promised no U.S. layoffs for the foreseeable future during
Tuesday's webcast, viewed by most of her 50,000-plus U.S.
staffers.
Nevertheless, Ms. Grier said earlier, "we're creating the
playbook for this [crisis] minute by minute, day by day."
Write to Joann S. Lublin at joann.lublin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 25, 2020 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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