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Think like your successor would

In an executive coaching session with a very successful business leader last week I hit on an idea for overcoming a challenge we all face once we’ve been in a leadership role for a while. No matter how well we start, sooner or later there comes a point when we realise we’ve lost perspective on the changes we wanted to make and the opportunities we saw so clearly when we first stepped into our role.

Inertia begins to take its toll. Things we intended to fix now just blend into the landscape. We get busy and lose perspective. Our momentum and energy fade as maintenance mode takes over. As the old cliché goes we start to realise we ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’ anymore.

My client had turned around his business when he first took over the leadership a few years ago, but now what? Grow stale? Incremental improvement? Look for a challenge somewhere else? No, the answer was simple. “Imagine you’ve been fired, and the person replacing you… is you.”

Think like your successor would. Wipe the slate clean. No assumptions. No limits. No baggage. No weariness. No excuses.

If you’ve been in your role more than six months, ask yourself these questions-

If you were starting in this job today, what would your high priority agenda be?
What would you being unwilling to tolerate that has been accepted until now?
What audacious goals and strategies would you set that the ‘old leader’ didn’t think were possible?
What limitations would you challenge that the ‘last team’ had chosen to believe?
What would you ruthlessly get rid of that’s unproductive/ outdated/ mediocre?
What opportunities would you be excited to capitalise on that the ‘previous team’ had squandered?

Go on. Steal your own job. You’ll do a better job than the old leader did anyway.