Super Charged Executive Development for “The Achiever”
August 14th, 2009 by David Utts
- As indicated in my last entry, the development of leadership capacity in an individual is an issue of human development. In other words, leaders are not born they are made. Yet, just as one size does not fit all – there is no one style of leadership that fits everyone. By understanding specific developmental pathways and how they related to leadership enables us to help executive leaders add velocity towards increasing their leadership impact.
For the Achiever - Winning is Everything!
In short, the pathway of development into a strong executive leader involves moving from a more reactive stance to one that is more proactive and creative. It is an issue of evolving and transforming into higher orders of who you already are. There are three primary developmental orientations: 1:
- The Achiever
- The Intellectual
- The Relate
Over the next three entries I will take each of these orientations – one at a time – and describe the fundamental beliefs and approaches this orientation has to accomplish tasks as well as working with people. I will also highlight the most natural developmental path for each orientation. While I will focus on each of these orientations individually – it is important to note that all individuals are unique in a couple of ways. First, many will feel an affinity for more than one of these orientations and in my experience there are mixes. Second and most importantly, everyone is at a different level of development. Some will have broken through towards the more proactive level and others may find themselves more aligned with the reactive stance for each orientation. Yet, a first step in any leader’s development must taking the time to understand where they are at now. Looking at these three stances separately will allow you to gain a better grasp of your fundamental orientation. In this entry I will focus on “The Achiever.”
For the Achiever – winning is everything and business is a competition! In their reactive stance, achievers experience that they are their results and become extremely frustrated when they are not in power or able to control the outcome. Does that resonate at all for you? If so, read on…
The Achiever’s Fundamental Beliefs include the following: 2
- I am safe when I am in charge.
- If I win I am worthy.
- My results are me.
- I don’t trust others to do it as well as I can do.
- There are winners and losers – I will do anything to be a winner.
- When others admire me – it proves my value.
- Not being better than others minimizes my sense of success and fulfillment.
- failure feels like death (or is death) to me.
Achievers strive for perfection in all they do. They also tend to have very high standards and expect others to align with theirs. Achievers love power and take charge when ever they can. When out of power they are quite uncomfortable. They also tend to be very direct and blunt in their speaking.
Achievers tend to be quick to anger when things do not work out as expected yet they also let go of it pretty quickly. They become very focused during crisis and feel a call to arms to solve what ever has emerged. They embrace change and tend to be averse to rules – especially ones that get in the way of producing results.
Achievers at Their Worst:
At their worst the Achiever demeans those around them and does not take into account the feelings or aspirations of their direct reports. They are aggressive, controlling, thoughtless, offensive, intimidating and deflect any negative feedback about themselves coming from others. They believe they are fine as they are. If they are in a position of authority they are very difficult to work for.
The Evolved Achiever
At their highest and best, Achievers are are strong, powerful, effective, capable and responsible people with true leadership qualities. People feel safe turning the world over to highly developed Achievers because everyone is sure they are capable of structuring it efficiently and running it well…and they often are. Positive Achievers are great delegaters who get complex projects done. They can inspire great things from those they lead. They are generous and magnanimous and always willing to help someone else succeed in their own right. Achievers can achieve what Jim Collins calls “Level 5 Leadership.” They can be extremely humble while at the same time extremely results focused 3.
The Achiever’s Developmental Path
The Achiever embodies many inherent gifts. If you want to get things accomplished especially under fire – the Achiever excels. They are strong influencers. They excel in crisies but as they evolve they can also become great visionaries.
Research has clearly shown that in order to succeed in any developmental process we must be able to focus on an individual’s strengths. Transforming strengths to higher and more effective levels also tends to remove other bllindspots and mitigates achilles heels. For example, leveraging an Achiever’s focus on results to a more strategic level will help them value relationships more because they realize they can not get things done with others and in order to do that – they must shift their approach.
On the other hand, an Achiever who is on the more negative end of the spectrum is pretty inculcated. The best chance of helping them embrace development is to generate a positive “shock” to their system that opens them up to learning more.
Leadership Development Strategies for The Achiever
Raise the water line
Achievers love challenges and if the challenge is big enough it will both excite them and open them more up to the learning process. Achievers appreciate practical approaches that will help them achieve their results faster. So if you want to support the development of an achiever put them in a situation that challenges their limits and give them support that will push them to try new approaches to improve their impact as a leader. For example, rotating them into a project or position that is aligned with their strengths yet challenges their abilities to achieve the stated results is a good way to get them into a development mode.
Raise their focus
Achievers are very comfortable at the tactical level. This is the place they shined as individual contributors yet in leadership they enter a larger frame for influence. If they don’t expand into this view – they will maintain their micro-managing ways. The key is to help the achiever in a leadership position to grow into strategic thinkers. The organization needs to challenge them to build a vision big enough that they will not be able to do it on their own. With a big vision you again tap into what drives the achiever and you also help them appreciate that they need others to achieve their vision. If they are going to get others to follow them then they will become more open to approaching interpersonal interactions in more respectful ways.
Help them embrace their more positive attributes.
As Achievers develop it is important for them to understand what they can be. The key is to empower the Achiever by talking to them about how they can increase their influence and impact. This tends to quiet the concerns that they have to change dramatically to be more impactful and powerful. Yet, also provides them with new approaches that align with their underlying nature.
Give them the power yet ensure their success includes team and individual development metrics.
We have all heard the adage that people do what they are compensated for. This is never more true than for the Achiever! For example, the more you reinforce individual accomplishment – the more you will get. Not the best way to develop the Achiever – especially in an environment where you are encouraging teamwork, collaboration and shared risk taking. Therefore make sure compensation and rewards are connected to feedback they receive on their performance as strategists, building positive relationships and team development.
In conclusion, Achievers at their best can become great leaders. The key is to get them to let go of having their hands on everything and help them realize they can have much more impact by focusing on bigger and broader visions than tasks they have control over.
My next entry will focus on the “Intellectual“
- adapted from the work of Bob Anderson of The Leadership Circle ↩
- Adapted from Bob Anderson and The Leadership Circle, 2004 ↩
- Collins, Jim, Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, Harper Collins Publishers, NY, NY, 2001 ↩
Tags: development tips, executive development, Leadership Development
August 31st, 2009 at 8:51 pm
[...] our last entry we took a deeper look at the key qualities and the leveraged developmental path for The Achiever. In this entry we will examine The [...]