After participating in the Dynamic Leadership Personal Values’ Survey, my top three character traits were Wisdom & Knowledge, Transcendence and Courage. I agree with my score for each of these character traits, because they align with who I am both personally and professionally. I value Wisdom and knowledge because I am an open-minded individual, I love learning and I am very curious. I also value Transcendence because I am hopeful, I am spiritual and I have a sense of purpose. Lastly, I value Courage, because I am very persistent, I have vigor and integrity is very important to me. Values and Principles are unified, as our values are our essential beliefs and our principles edicts our behaviors. The Principles that emanate from Wisdom & Knowledge are: • Knowing the boundary’s on my respective knowledge: simply put, it is wise to understand your own competence • Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding” (Proverbs 17:27-28) The Principles that emanate from Transcendence are: • Hope is contagious and we can all be productive when hope is present: hope makes all things conceivable • Humility is the key to progress • When you disregard the deed of appreciating, you limit your potential for joy and satisfaction in the present moment The Principles that emanate from Courage are: • The valiant and more persistent we become, the more our reliability will increase, which will make one a more courageous character • Don’t force your brand of authenticity on others. Your authentic individualities may not be those of the individuals around you. The goal of being an authentic leader is transforming one’s objectives into outcomes, all while staying true to your fundamental values. • Conduct yourself unswervingly. Actions, not words, best show one’s authenticity I disagree with the low score that I accumulated for the Humanity section, as I know that I lead with humanity which is very important to me. Leading with humanity permits us to see past our own needs and desires, and empowers us to concentrate on the individuals around us. It inspires altruism by including others in our world view and taking them into deliberation: hen we do this, we reveal compassion and empathy. Managing Yourself BY ROBERT S. KAPLAN Reaching Your Potential Fulfillment doesn’t come from clearing hurdles others set for you; it comes from clearing those you set for yourself. spend a substantial amount of time thinking about strategies that will help them achieve greater levels of success. They strive for a more impressive job title, higher compensation, and responsibility for more sizable revenues, profits, and numbers of employees. Their definitions of success are often heavily influenced by family, friends, and colleagues. Yet many ultimately find that, despite their efforts and accomplishments, they lack a true sense of professional satisfaction and fulfillment. During my career with Goldman Sachs, as well as over the past few years of teaching and coaching managers and MBA students at Harvard Business School, I have met a surprisingly large number of impressive executives who expressed deep frustration with their careers. They looked Kim Rosen AMBITIOUS PROFESSIONALS OFTEN back and felt that they should have achieved more or even wished that they had chosen a different career altogether. Consider a very successful research analyst at a large securities firm who came to see me because he was discouraged with his career progress. This was particularly ironic because he was well known, highly regarded (ranked number one in his industry sector), and well compensated. He told me that, after 10 years, he was tired of his job, disliked his boss, and felt he had no potential for further upward mobility. Most of all, he had always wanted to be an investment manager, but he had started out as an analyst and never really reassessed his career path. He felt trapped. He feared losing his stature and didn’t want to let anyone down, but at the same time he didn’t want to keep doing what he was doing. hbr.org 1320 Kaplan.indd 45 | July–August 2008 | Harvard Business Review 45 6/5/08 7:36:16 PM Managing Yourself Reaching Your Potential As we talked, he wondered if he’d been so busy trying to reach specific milestones and impress other people that he’d lost sight of what he really enjoyed doing. The truth was that he loved analyzing stocks and assessing management teams, but he also wanted to have the responsibility for making the actual investment decisions and then be held accountable for the results. I encouraged him to take action and speak to a number of investment firms (including his current employer) about a career change. After doing this, he ultimately was offered and accepted a portfolio manager position in the asset management division of his current firm. He learned that his firm’s leaders wanted to retain him regardless of job description and that they were quite surprised to find out he wanted to be on the investment side of the business. He has since become a superb investment manager, and although he wishes he’d stepped back and reexamined his career years earlier, he’s thrilled that he made the switch while there was “still time.” If you are experiencing similar feelings of frustration or even regret about ARTICLE AT A GLANCE ■ Finding fulfillment involves taking a very personal look at how you define success in your heart of hearts – and then following your own path there. ■ Your boss isn’t responsible for managing your career; you are. ■ To reach your potential, you need to know yourself – particularly, your strengths, weaknesses, and passions; identify and excel at the tasks critical to success in your job; and demonstrate character and leadership. they have a substantial degree of control. Seizing control requires you to take a fresh look at your behavior in three main areas: knowing yourself, excelling at critical tasks, and demonstrating character and leadership. Knowing Yourself Taking responsibility for your career starts with an accurate assessment of your current skills and performance. Can you write down your two or three great- “Am I reaching my potential?” is not the same as asking, “How do I rise to the top?” the direction of your career, this article is intended to help you examine the question, “Am I reaching my potential?” This is not the same as asking, “How do I rise to the top?” or “How can I be successful in my career?” Rather, it’s about taking a very personal look at how you define success in your heart of hearts and then finding your path to get there. To do that, you must step back and reassess your career – starting with the recognition that managing it is your responsibility. Too many people feel like victims in their careers, when in fact 46 Harvard Business Review 1320 Kaplan.indd 46 | est strengths and your two or three most significant weaknesses? While most people can detail their strengths, they often struggle to identify key weaknesses. This exercise involves meaningful reflection and, almost always, requires soliciting the views of people who will tell you the brutal truth. Unfortunately, you often can’t count on your boss to accurately assess your strengths or to be willing to confront you with what you’re doing wrong. It’s up to you to take control of this process by seeking coaching, asking for very specific feedback, and being receptive to input from a wide variety July–August 2008 | of people at various levels within your organization. This gathering of feedback needs to be an ongoing process because, as your career progresses, you will face new challenges and demands. Recently I met with a division head of a large professional services firm. Though he’d been a rising star for several years, he felt he’d begun to stagnate. His direct reports and his CEO no longer seemed engaged and enthusiastic in their dealings with him, and he didn’t know why. In our discussions, he was able to specifically describe his strengths, but when I asked about his weaknesses, he gave me fairly generic responses, such as “Maybe I’m too impatient” and “I need to raise my profile.” When I pressed him about feedback from his boss he still struggled to identify even one specific weakness. I sent him off on an assignment: Interview at least five colleagues and subordinates. He returned a few weeks later with several “surprises.” He’d heard, for example, that while he was detail-oriented and decisive, he micromanaged, had a dictatorial style, and failed to listen. Armed with these insights, he sought coaching, started working on his flaws, and began regularly soliciting feedback from his colleagues and subordinates. A year later he reported that his effectiveness had improved as a result of these ongoing efforts, and he was once again feeling confident and optimistic about his career. This type of initiative takes time, humility, and a willingness to confront weaknesses, fears, and blind spots that many of us would rather ignore. But I never cease to be impressed by the capacity of people to change and improve once they recognize their shortcomings as well as their strengths. Of course, getting others to tell you where you’re falling short isn’t easy – particularly if they’re your subordinates. It must be done in one-on-one conversations, and you need to give potential coaches time to learn that you’re sincere. When your employees see you actually act on their feedback, they are likely to hbr.org 6/5/08 7:36:23 PM become more proactive in offering advice, because they know you value their input. Your subordinates and colleagues will also feel they have a stake in your success and that of your unit – which will make them more likely to enjoy working with you. Once you have a grip on your strengths and weaknesses, your next challenge is to figure out what you truly enjoy doing. What’s your dream job? How well does it match what you currently do? Many people either don’t know what their passions are or are so focused on the views of their peers that they drift into the wrong career. I was recently approached by an MBA student who wanted advice on whether to go work for a hedge fund, a private equity firm, or an investment bank. When asked whether he had an interest in financial markets, he quickly said no. He wasn’t even sure about the key tasks that each of those jobs would entail. When asked what he would do if he had $10 million in the bank, however, his answer was very clear: pursue a career in the music industry. He was a concert-level musician and loved the music business. Once he recognized how much he had been swayed by his fellow students’ bias toward the lucrative financial services industry, he realized he needed to rethink his choices. The conventional wisdom about the attractiveness of various careers changes constantly. Twenty-five years ago the medical and legal professions were considered financially rewarding and socially desirable. Today, a number of doctors and lawyers are frustrated in their jobs and realize that they might have based their career choices excessively on the views of their peers and popular opinion, instead of on whether they would actually love the work. Hedge funds and private equity are today’s hot fields, but people who go into them without a strong enthusiasm for the actual tasks may find themselves starting from scratch a few years down the line. Loving what you do gives you the strength to weather personal setbacks, overcome adversity, face and address your weaknesses, and work the long hours typically needed to reach your full potential. Excelling at Critical Tasks It’s very difficult to succeed if you don’t excel at the tasks that are central to your chosen enterprise. That sounds painfully simple, but many executives fail to identify the three or four most important activities that lead to success in their job or business. If you’re a medical researcher, the three keys are likely to be conducting cutting-edge research, getting published, and fund-raising. If you I have seen many people stall their careers by playing it safe. manage a large sales force, the crucial tasks might be attracting, retaining, and developing outstanding salespeople; customer segmentation; and client relationship management. If you’re assessing a potential job move, you need to know what will drive success in the new position and, then, ask yourself whether you enjoy those key tasks. In your current job, identifying critical tasks helps you determine how to spend your time and develop your skills. Promising leaders sometimes lose sight of this connection. Not long ago, a new division head at a large industrial company told me that he was struggling to grow sales and profits. He complained that he was spending too much time fighting fires and didn’t have enough hours in the day. When I asked him to identify the three main drivers of success in his business, he realized that he wasn’t sure. He spent the next several weeks interviewing staff and customers, and concluded that success in his business depended on developing close relationships with the purchasing managers at each of his top 25 customers, putting the right people in critical sales and manufacturing leadership positions, and staying at the cutting edge of prod- hbr.org 1320 Kaplan.indd 47 uct innovation. He also realized that his division was performing poorly in all three areas. He proceeded to clear his calendar, force himself to delegate tasks that were less central to success, and focus on raising the bar in each of these areas. Six months later he reported that he had replaced a number of executives – including the sales manager and head of product development – and created an executive committee that met weekly to discuss critical business issues. He also reported that he’d become much more disciplined in matching his priorities | (and those of his leadership team) with the keys to success for the business. Sales and profits began to improve, and he felt confident that he would resume his upward career trajectory. Demonstrating Character and Leadership While seemingly amorphous, character and leadership often make the difference between good performance and great performance. One measure of character is the degree to which you put the interests of your company and colleagues ahead of your own. Excellent leaders are willing to do things for others without regard to what’s in it for them. They coach and mentor. They have the mindset of an owner and figure out what they would do if they were the ultimate decision maker. They’re willing to make a recommendation that would benefit the organization’s overall performance, possibly to the detriment of their own unit. They have the courage to trust that they will eventually be rewarded, even if their actions may not be in their own short-term interest. Being a leader also means being willing to speak up, even when you’re expressing an unpopular view. CEOs’ July–August 2008 | Harvard Business Review 47 6/5/08 7:36:28 PM Managing Yourself Reaching Your Potential CAREER COUNSEL Follow Your Own Path Reaching your potential requires introspection and certain proactive behaviors – but it starts with a basic philosophy, or “rules of the road.” 1 Managing your career is 100% your responsibility, and you need to act accordingly. Many promising professionals expect their superiors to mentor them, give them thoughtful coaching, provide them with challenging opportunities, and generally steer their development. Such a passive approach is likely to derail you at some point. While your superiors will play a role, your career is your own. 2 Be wary of conventional wisdom. It’s almost always wrong – for you. Hopping on the bandwagon may feel good initially but often leads to painful regrets years later. To reach your potential, you must filter out peer pressure and popular opinion; assess your own passions, skills, and convictions; and then be courageous enough to act on them. 3 Have faith that, although justice may not prevail at any given point in time, it should generally prevail over time. When you do suffer an injustice, you need to be willing to step back and objectively assess your own role in these events. That mind-set will help you learn from inevitable setbacks and eventually bounce back. It will also help you stay focused on issues you can control as well as bolster your determination to act like the ultimate decision maker. 48 Harvard Business Review 1320 Kaplan.indd 48 | July–August 2008 | proposals often generate head nodding, even from people who secretly harbor serious reservations. In reality, most chief executives desperately want dissenting opinions so they can make better choices. While emerging leaders must use good judgment regarding the tone and timing of their dissent, they also need to be aware that they can hit a plateau by playing it safe when they should be asserting their heartfelt opinions. One CEO recounted to me his regrets over a recent key hire. His top three reports had each interviewed the various job candidates and expressed no major concerns about the final choice. After the new hire was on board – and had begun to struggle – it came to light that two of the three senior managers had privately held significant reservations but concluded that the CEO’s mind was made up and that speaking out was unwise. The CEO was furious. Though he recognized his own role in the mess (he vowed to more actively encourage dissent), he also lowered his opinion of the two executives who failed to express their views. Otherwise confident executives sometimes overestimate the career risk of speaking up and meaningfully underestimate the risk of staying silent. I encourage people to develop various approaches to help them overcome this hesitancy: For example, I’ve counseled emerging executives to save their money to build financial security and to avoid getting too emotionally attached to their jobs. Though it may seem that you’ll never find another great job, you have to have faith that there are many attractive opportunities outside your firm. In some cases, I advise people to become experts in some specific business area in order to build their confidence. I also encourage people to spend more time deciding what they truly believe versus trying to guess what the boss might want to hear. At work, as in competitive sports, you must play with confidence and even a little abandon. I’ve talked to several executives whose finest moments came when they gathered their hbr.org 6/5/08 7:36:33 PM courage and confidently expressed disagreement with their boss and peers. To their surprise, they found that they were treated with more respect after these episodes. Most outstanding CEOs value emerging executives who assert themselves out of genuine concern for what is best for the company. Doing the right thing is a reward in itself – psychologically in the short run and professionally in the longer run. Of course, this approach requires that you have some reasonable level of faith that justice will prevail. I have seldom seen people hurt their careers by speaking up and appropriately articulating a well-thought-out contrary position (even when it was unpopular). However, I have seen many bitter and confused people who stalled their careers by playing it safe. Book your ultimate getaway. A trip to last your entire career. ••• Every rewarding career will bring ups and downs, bad days, bad weeks, and bad months. Everyone will face setbacks and discouraging situations. Some people abandon their plans when they hit one of these bumps. They lose their way and ultimately undermine their own performance – and the wound is all the more painful because it is self-inflicted. The advice in this article is intended to help you avoid such self-inflicted wounds. There’s nothing anyone can do to prevent you from reaching your potential; the challenge is for you to identify your dream, develop the skills to get there, and exhibit character and leadership. Then, you need to have the courage to periodically reassess, make adjustments, and pursue a course that reflects who you truly are. Robert S. Kaplan (rokaplan@hbs.edu) is the acting president and CEO of Harvard Management Company and a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School in Boston. He is also a former vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group. Reprint R0807C To order, see page 163. 1320 Kaplan.indd 49 ARESTY INSTITUTE OF EXECUTIVE EDUCATION We’re all business.® Come for a few days. A week. Five weeks. Whichever executive education program you choose at Wharton, it will transform not only your perspective on business, it will transform you. Learn with the brightest minds in business today for impact to last your entire career. Download our FREE article series “Wharton on Senior Management” at executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu. For more information, e-mail execed@wharton.upenn.edu. Call 800.255.3932 (U.S. or Canada) or +1.215.898.1776 (worldwide), and reference HBR. 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Academic licensees may not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning management systems. Harvard Business Publishing will be pleased to grant permission to make this content available through such means. For rates and permission, contact permissions@harvardbusiness.org. CRUCIBLE 164 Management lessons from a high-flying mother of three CASE STUDY 173 A Bordeaux winemaker ponders whether to launch an affordable brand SYNTHESIS 178 Can high-end events like TED be both elite and democratic? LIFE’S WORK 184 The jazz musician Wynton Marsalis on harnessing creative talent Experience Managing Your Professional Growth hbr.org MANAGING YOURSELF Stop Holding Yourself Back Five ways people unwittingly sabotage their rise to leadership by Anne Morriss, Robin J. Ely, and Frances X. Frei We’ve worked with hundreds of leaders in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, in industries spanning more than 30 fields, and in more than 50 countries at various stages of development. Amid all the diversity, one very clear pattern has emerged: Organization builders, fire starters, and movement makers are unintentionally stopping themselves from becoming exceptional leaders. As a result, companies aren’t getting the best from their people, and employees are limiting their opportunities. Why does this happen? We’ve identified five major barriers. BARRIER 1 Overemphasizing Personal Goals True leadership is about making other people better as a result of your presence— and making sure your impact endures in your absence. That doesn’t mean leaders are selfless. They have personal goals—to build status, a professional identity, and a retirement plan, among other things. ILLUSTRATION: JAKOB HINRICHS F rom the world’s poorest communities to the corner offices of its largest corporations, ambitious employees struggle with the same basic challenge: how to gain the strength and insights not just to manage but to lead. For more than a decade, from three different perspectives, we have been investigating what gets in the way. Robin conducts research on race, gender, and leadership; Frances focuses on coaching senior executives; and Anne works on unleashing social entrepreneurs around the world. 160 Harvard Business Review January–February 2011 1568 JanFeb11 Morriss.indd 160 12/3/10 4:34:38 PM HBR.ORG HBR.ORG Do you have questions or comments about this article? The authors will respond to reader feedback at hbr.org. But the narrow pursuit of those goals can lead to self-protection and self-promotion, neither of which fosters other people’s success. One leader we studied fell into this destructive behavior after a long, successful run at a number of software companies. Troy’s bosses had always valued his drive and accountability. But when customer complaints began pouring into the service division he was managing, he pinned the blame on the “mediocrity” of the product development division, claiming that his team had to support an inferior product. Troy’s COO disagreed and began to hint that Troy’s job was on the line: After all, the complaints had started accumulating on his watch. To shore up his position, Troy started working to win over senior colleagues one by one—“picking them off,” as he put it—by asking for feedback on his performance. His strategy worked to some extent. Senior management recognized that he was committed to improving his leadership skills. But the customer service problems just got worse. People began trashing the company on influential blogs, and demands for refunds kept rising. The more Troy worked to save his job, the harder his job became. Troy had a leadership breakthrough when one of his service representatives asked for help resolving the growing conflict with the product development team. The rep’s despair triggered a shift in Troy’s thinking—away from worrying about his own position and toward healing the split between the two divisions. Troy hosted a series of cross-team meetings and made sure that both groups felt heard. By the third meeting, the teams were brainstorming about ways to solve the service problem together, by improving the software and helping customers learn how to better use it. Like other effective leaders, Troy changed his focus from protecting himself to supporting the members of his team and making sure that customers were happy. Within a few weeks, demands for refunds began to decrease, even though the company hadn’t yet made any upgrades to the product. The decision to focus on others can feel dangerous. It forces you to take your eyes off your own welfare and to stop scanning the horizon for predators. Risk aversion is a protective mechanism wired into our DNA; that’s why security concerns generally trump impact. But all breakthrough leaders find ways to tame their security impulses. Most are amazed by the energy and meaning they discover when they no longer define themselves by their personal needs and fears. Making other people a priority is perhaps most challenging for emerging leaders—especially women and minorities, who may feel heightened pressure to protect their interests in a world that seems (and often is) rigged against them. When societal attitudes contain built-in questions about your competence, it takes a lot of energy to keep trying to prove those attitudes wrong. We don’t underestimate this challenge. But if your goal is to lead, our advice is the same no matter who you are: First, get over yourself. Start with a commitment to make another person, or an entire team, better—and then go back for the skills and resources to pull it off. BARRIER 2 Protecting Your Public Image Another common impediment to leadership is being overly distracted by your image—that ideal self you’ve created in your mind. Sticking to the script that goes along with that image takes a lot of energy, leaving little left over for the real work of leadership. There are more-nuanced costs as well. Once you’ve crafted your persona and determined not to veer from it, your effectiveness often suffers. The need to be seen as intelligent can inhibit learning and risk taking, for instance. The need to be seen as likable can keep you from asking tough questions or challenging existing norms. The need to be seen as decisive can cause you to shut down critical feedback loops. One woman we interviewed, Anita, was an executive vice president in charge of the regional performance of a large retail company. The public image she’d created—tough, decisive, analytical—had been a powerful instrument in advancing her career. But it left little room for her humanity—an essential part of the leadership equation. Anita thought that using intuition was intellectually lazy; she was known for the phrase “Show me the data.” When in-store analytics suggested that the company The rep’s despair triggered a shift in Troy’s thinking—away from worrying about his own position and toward healing the split in the company. gained little advantage from long-term employees, Anita ordered some store managers to replace experienced salespeople with lower-paid part-timers. The experiment reduced payroll costs, but it wreaked havoc on the culture and service experience in those stores—an outcome the data didn’t immediately reveal. Store managers tried to communicate their frustration to Anita, but the interactions invariably went badly. She pushed back on any concerns that weren’t supported by numbers and recklessly concluded that her managers simply feared change. Their resignations started to roll in. Like many leaders, Anita had decided she could be tough or empathetic—but not both. She was unable to hear feedback, particularly from people below her, or to risk looking bad by making a high-profile course correction. And so she lost some of the company’s best managers. Once the turnover on her team reached 50%, however, Anita decided she had to take action. Inspired by an exercise in January–February 2011 Harvard Business Review 161 1568 JanFeb11 Morriss.indd 161 12/3/10 4:35:13 PM EXPERIENCE Leadership Diagnostic: Are You Having Maximum Impact? For most of us, the high-impact leader lurking inside comes out only on our best days. If you find yourself in this category—if you’re not getting the leadership traction you want—ask yourself these questions. If most of your answers are “no,” you may be getting in your own way. Overemphasizing Personal Goals Protecting Your Public Image Do I spend most of my time as a manager thinking about what other people in the organization need to succeed? Do I ever stop monitoring myself and simply do my job? 12 Does the “best version” of my employees show up in my presence? Does their best version endure in my absence? Have I been willing to “look bad” in the service of my team or organization? Do I explicitly model the attitudes and behaviors I want others in my organization to adopt? an executive education program she’d in integrating acquired businesses, and attended, she thought about teams she’d she was unambiguously great at her job. been part of that had worked together well. But she became easily frustrated by the She then spoke with some of the people “incompetence” of coworkers, including involved in an attempt to figure out why. Max, the CFO. Sarah was quick to dismiss Her conversation with her high school his abilities, having decided that he was volleyball coach rattled her. He gave this out of his league and held his position only advice: “If you want your people to care because he fawned over other senior leadwhat you think, first make it clear that you ers, particularly the CEO. She began to discare what they think.” Within a few days, like everything about him—his voice, his Anita reached out to one of the managers ridiculous cufflink collection, his goatee. who had just resigned, a woman with a Sarah started to rethink her judgment decade of experience making retail spaces only when she was seated next to Max on work. She invited the manager to come a flight from London to the U.S. Forced back and help her repair the damage. Their to engage, she learned the reason for his collaboration was a professional turning point for Anita. This type of journey is not uncommon. At some point in their leadership trajectory, ambitious people must choose between image and impact, between looking powerful and empowering others. They must choose, in effect, between impersonating a leader and being one. active approach. Take a hard look at how you interact with colleagues whose agendas seem opposed to your own. Recognize that these colleagues are real people who may even become your allies. apparent sycophancy—he was concerned about the CEO’s credibility with investors and senior managers. By the time the plane landed, Sarah and Max were not only mapping out a plan to present the CEO more effectively but also talking about working together on business opportunities in Asia. Just as important, the conversation made Sarah realize that her hastily formed aversion had caused her to miss out on valuable chances to collaborate with a worthy colleague. Circumstances forced Sarah to humanize Max, but we recommend a more pro- fears: by relying on the advice and support of select friends and family members. We call these people “the team.” Troy’s team played a key role in his shift from focusing on his own career to helping his colleagues succeed. After more than a few sleepless nights, Troy decided to host a casual dinner for the people whose opinions he valued most: a sister, two friends from college, and a software entrepreneur he’d met at a recent Ironman competition. Halfway into the appetizer course, he put aside his pride, described his problem, and asked for advice. BARRIER 4 Going It Alone Most people opt out of leadership for perfectly good reasons. The road, by definition, is unsafe. It leads to change, not comfort. Troy, the software service division manager, found it deeply unsettling to try working in a brand-new way. Eventually, though, he learned how to cope with his Find the people who believe in your desire and ability to lead. Fall in love with them. Or at least meet them for drinks on a regular basis. BARRIER 3 Turning Competitors Into Enemies One particularly toxic behavior is the act of turning those you don’t get along with into two-dimensional enemies. Distorting other people is a common response to conflict, but it carries significant leadership costs. It severs your links to reality, making you reliably incapable of exerting influence. As you turn others into caricatures, you risk becoming a caricature yourself. Consider Sarah, the COO of a global medical devices company. She specialized 162 Harvard Business Review January–February 2011 1568 JanFeb11 Morriss.indd 162 12/3/10 4:35:18 PM HBR.ORG Turning Competitors Into Enemies Going It Alone Waiting for Permission 34 5 Is it rare for me to feel defensive, insecure, or judgmental? Is it rare for people to feel defensive, insecure, or judgmental around me? Is my environment generally free of people I can’t stand to be around? Do I have a core group of people who help me make important decisions? Do I have people around me who can handle both my audacity and my insecurities? Is it possible to make a difference from my current position? Do I have control over when I’ll be able to have a meaningful impact? Could I become a leader before other people see me as one? Do the most important people in my life participate in my leadership dreams? His new triathlete friend, Raj, pushed Troy to stop worrying so much about his own job and instead try to break down the organizational silos that were making his life difficult and threatening the company as well. Troy initially resisted the idea, but the next day he decided to change his behavior according to what he called “Raj’s intervention.” The collaborative culture he created in his division and with the product development division became a model for other groups in the company. To this day Troy continues the monthly dinner ritual so that he and his “team” of family and friends can keep sharing problems and ideas. We heard similar stories from other effective leaders. Almost all of them have a strong team that helps provide perspective, grounding, and faith. Your team members can be family, colleagues, friends, mentors, spouses, partners. The litmus test: Does the leader in you regularly show up in their presence? Find the people who believe in your desire and ability to lead. Fall in love with them. Or at least meet them for drinks on a regular basis. BARRIER 5 Waiting for Permission Like risk aversion, patience can be a valuable evolutionary gift. It’s a main ingredient in discipline and hope. It helps us uncover the root cause of problems. It keeps us from hurting someone at the DMV. But patience can be a curse for emerging leaders. It can undermine our potential by persuading us to keep our heads down and soldier on, waiting for someone to recognize our efforts and give us the proverbial tap on the shoulder—a better title and formal authority. The problem with this approach is that healthy organizations reward people who decide on their own to lead. Power and influence are intimate companions, but their relationship isn’t the one we tend to imagine. More often than not, influence leads to power, not the other way around. Most of the exceptional leaders we’ve studied didn’t wait for formal authority to begin making changes. They may have ended up in a corner office, but their leadership started elsewhere. In one way or another, they all simply began to use whatever informal power they had. A personal trainer named Jon was in the middle of a workout session when he made the decision to lead. One morning, while he was trying to help a client lose her post-pregnancy weight, his mind kept wandering to a teenager he knew, and especially to worries that he might have joined a gang. In the middle of counting crunches, Jon realized he wanted to do something different with his life. He sketched out his vision that night. He knew that weightlifting could appeal to young people at risk for gang involvement, so he decided to start a program that would offer them physical empowerment, independence, and community, and help them build self-esteem. Two years later InnerCity Weightlifting was serving more than a hundred kids in East Boston. Its gyms are among the few places in the city where rival gang members come together peacefully. Jon is now poised to expand the concept to other cities. Jon’s career change was not a logical pivot, at least not from an outside perspective. He was young, he was inexperienced with youth development programs, and he’d grown up with limited exposure to urban life. His friends and family thought he was crazy to give up his lucrative personaltraining practice for what seemed to them a pipe dream. But Jon was impatient, unwilling to wait until he’d gained experience and legitimacy. He went for it anyway, and the program’s early results gave him enough influence to recruit students, schools, parents, and funders. Jon’s story holds a lesson for every aspiring leader: You must simply begin. Our Closing Plea We’re sharing this research because we’re quite selfishly invested in having you get out of your own way. We want to live in a world—we want our children to grow up in a world—in which your talents are fully unleashed on the issues that matter most. You should learn to recognize and overcome the self-imposed obstacles to your impact. The rest of us need you on the front lines, building better organizations. HBR Reprint R1101P Anne Morriss (amorriss@concire.com) is the managing director of the Concire Leadership Institute, a consulting firm that helps leaders surface and remove performance barriers. Robin J. Ely (rely@hbs.edu) is the Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Frances X. Frei (ffrei@hbs.edu) is the UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management at Harvard Business School. January–February 2011 Harvard Business Review 163 1568 JanFeb11 Morriss.indd 163 12/3/10 4:35:25 PM Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions, May 2009 Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing Newsletter content on EBSCOhost is licensed for the private individual use of authorized EBSCOhost users. It is not intended for use as assigned course material in academic institutions nor as corporate learning or training materials in businesses. Academic licensees may not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning management systems. 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