An onboarding at breakneck speed
Patrick is a proven leader who has built his successes on his ability to think about the future and sell his projects well to those around him. Not really interested in details, he likes to anticipate and dream, getting his energy from the ambition of the projects he undertakes. Fast and hardworking, he can have difficulty delegating, as his level of requirement is high. He has an effortless power of attraction and his aura has led some of his collaborators to follow him blindly. On the other hand, although he is rarely aware of it, he exhausts those around him with his dynamism and his constantly renewed ambitions. And while he favors empowering and participative leadership, he sometimes struggles to truly collaborate. He seems to adopt a listening position, but he prefers to convince rather than compromise. In the face of opposition, he avoids conflict and tries to carry out his projects by himself by finding new, more dedicated, alliances.
When he joined his new organization, Patrick quickly won unanimous support. The breath of fresh air he brought to the context of a conservative culture convinced his teams that a bright future was possible. During his first months, Patrick explained his ambitions, met his teams, multiplied visits to the various subsidiaries. He created a dynamic that the organization had not known in a long time.
However, after this “honeymoon” period, some clouds appeared. In particular, some members of his management team developed passive resistance in order to oppose the rhythm that their president wished to impose on them. Faced with this, Patrick replaced the two who were most opposed to his way of seeing things. This created a first shock, as the organization was not used to separating from its employees in this way. During this period, Patrick struggled to demonstrate evidence that his ambitious projects were getting results. Then, the board of directors began to grow impatient andrumors began to spread about the Patrick’s inability to keep his promises. For his part, Patrick became impatient with the slowness of the organization and its collaborators. In response, he tended to work increasingly alone or with the people he had recruited. He isolated himself by appropriating strategic files.
Finally, in less than nine months, Patrick went from being a charismatic leader who would have allowed the organization to get on a new track, to that of a secret leader who acted alone for uncertain interests.
A predictable failure
If we analyze Patrick’s onboarding process and the traps he failed to avoid, we can summarize them as follows:
- Patrick approached his role with confidence and assertiveness. He first tried to understand his professional and business environment by drawing on his past experiences. But, very quickly, he sought more to convince rather than to actually listen. In this sense, he let himself be carried away by his passion, his intuition to develop an engaging future but without taking the time to question his own certainties. He probably lacked humility by not relying sufficiently on the perspective of his direct collaborators and by not taking enough time to understand the culture of his organization.
- Of a visionary nature, Patrick also placed too much trust in the power of his vision and his enthusiasm. Finding details unattractive, he voluntarily stepped back from operations, unconsciously hoping that his teams would be able to materialize and implement his visionary projects. This had the effect of gradually distancing the intention he sought to promote from its concrete realization. Thus, he could not show rapid results which would have reassured the teams and his board of directors. A large part of the organization then found itself in a state of confusion when faced with the lack of clarity, not on the intention, but on the operating procedures which would have enabled this intention to become reality.
- After starting his mandate communicating and meeting with employees, he gradually isolated himself and became much less present. He ultimately found himself without real trusted partners within the organization with whom he could have had constructive discussions.
Des pistes de réflexion pour réussir sa prochaine prise de fonction
Patrick failed in his onboarding. This failure can result from an inability to manage contradictory expectations specific to onboarding as a leader. In order to help him succeed in his next onboarding, as a coach, we should first ask him about his learning and what he could have done differently to be more successful. This preliminary question is fundamental in order to measure Patrick’s ability to understand his environment in a precise and balanced manner.
Once this first reflection, we could discuss with him the following subjects:
- How will he take the time, and what means will he use to truly understand his organization, its culture, its history, what changes this organization is capable of accepting and at what rhythm?
- Change involves ambiguity and sometimes confusion. In this context, the role of a leader is to try to continuously clarify what cannot be completely clarified. Thus, Patrick must express and explain his vision (which he seems to know well) but must also spend time making this vision explicit and concrete for each of his employees. He must keep in mind that his own capacity for accepting ambiguity (which seems great) is not necessarily that of his collaborators.
- Passion and energy are a plus in management, but only if they are mastered. How can Patrick gain height over his own impulses and thus be able to show a certain rational objectivity in his judgments and his decisions?
- How can one find influential relays internally without relying only on new resources that one has recruited? Embarking all the members of its management team is not an option, it is a fundamental necessity to succeed in taking office.
- Tomorrow’s results are only part of the dream. What tangible short-term deliverables will he be able to rely on? How will Patrick ensure that these deliverables are known and recognized by all the stakeholders in his new organization?
We are willing to bet that, with this experience, Patrick will be able to bounce back and then take advantage of his fine leadership skills.