Reward.
It smiles as it gives you what you don’t want to lose.
Capable leaders do not lose their edge. It is rewarded out of them, one defensible decision at a time.
When were you first rewarded for playing it safe?
In the 90s it was commonplace for a senior person to put their arm round your shoulder and say well done. In an agency they probably took you to the pub and got you drunk.
The first time it happened to me, I was being praised for something I hadn’t said.
Terry was a legend in London advertising. And not for the good reasons. He was my boss and he taught me a lot. Not always good things.
Terry said he had sent the client the quote for a TV shoot. He hadn’t. It blew up when the client asked why the shoot was costing double what they expected.
Our TV producer had the most unusual filing system. Every important memo was printed out and piled on top of the filing cabinet by her desk. She found things by working back through the pile, date by date.
I was in the agency late one night. I saw Terry put a forged memo into the pile at the right date.
I didn’t tell anyone.
Terry put his arm round my shoulder, took me to the pub and congratulated me for being safe.
Why do capable leaders get more cautious as they rise?
Because it pays.
The organisation rewards the parts of a leader that are easiest to manage and starves the rest.
Mirror the existing style and you are called a safe pair of hands, and safe pairs of hands are given the good business units and the visible turnarounds. Challenge your peers and you are told in a review that you need to work on cross-functional alignment. Sponsorship happens in conversations you are not in.
Every organisation says it wants challenge. What it can metabolise is a smaller quantity than it believes, and the leaders inside it calibrate to the real number.
Is it just fear?
Fear is the face you notice. It only has something to guard because of the other two.
I still remember my very first office. It was at Saatchi & Saatchi, back in the 90s, when people still had offices. I set it up exactly how I wanted it. The desk faced the door, so I could look up when people came in. As it got darker I’d turn off the main light and sit under a single desk lamp, to make it all look more dramatic. I loved it.
Then the business went open plan, and I hated it. I thought I had earned that office. When it went, I thought I had lost everything I’d been working for.
The fear was losing status. I had just achieved positional authority by getting an office. At that point in my career I didn’t have enough grounded authority not to need one.
Why does it get worse at the top?
In the Apex you are doing two jobs. Delivering the growth expected of you, and defending your position while you do it. The first needs risk. The second needs nothing to look risky.
Why don’t capable leaders just leave?
In a board meeting I suggested a strategic issue be discussed openly by the board. The CEO shut the conversation down calmly, saying he would reflect on the issue and make a decision himself. The meeting moved on.
And I stayed. I liked the money, status and power too much to want to give it up. And I was scared I would never get that again.
Who pays for it?
The people below you. They learn it from watching what you reward.
I had just briefed my team on a new project. I thought I had got everyone excited. I gave them the information, told them what to do, told them they were empowered, and left.
I stopped just outside the door to reply to a message. They couldn’t see me. I could hear them.
My direct report was decoding the whole meeting for the others. Saying what they really thought. Saying all the things they didn’t have the courage to say in front of me. A lot of it was right.
What were you last congratulated for not doing?
This is larger than Reward.
Editing, what the reward installs.
The Apex, where the reward turns into defence.
The Domestication of Leaders, what institutional life does to a capable leader over time.
Board Meeting, the moment I stayed.
The Boards Were Hers, a Field Note on who gets the applause.
Key concepts, every term defined in one place.
Under a minute a day.
An email from me, having lived in The Apex: experiences, insights and ideas. A hundred words or fewer, weekdays around 7am. Something to think about, or something to use before lunch. Reply “stop” and I take you off myself.
Or take The Recognition. Seven questions on what your team tolerates, answered alone in ten minutes, and I read every one myself.