What Does it Really Take to Succeed in the C-Suite?

Steve Odland: Welcome to C-Suite Perspectives, a signature series by The Conference Board. I'm Steve Odland from The Conference Board and the host of this podcast series. In today's conversation, we're going to talk about how to excel at the highest level of leadership, the C-Suite, and the most common mistakes that new leaders make. Joining me today is an expert in the field, Jennifer Eggers, the founder and president of LeaderShift Insights. Jennifer's a C-Suite transition expert and author of the book, Mastering the C-Suite: The Senior Leaders Playbook to Build a C-Level Mindset, Command Respect, and Lead an Enterprise. Holy moly, you've packed a lot of words into that title. Jennifer, welcome to the show. Jennifer Eggers: Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Steve Odland: Tell us about the book. Why did you write this book and what overall are you trying to accomplish with it? Jennifer Eggers: Yeah, it's interesting. My team and I got together and we said, " I wanted to write a book." It was like, "You know what book hasn't been written?" We discovered there's huge changes when people [00:01:00] move from an expert in something or a business unit head to the C-Suite. And there really was no playbook for that. We knew a couple of things. One, we knew that leaders don't typically sit down and read a book cover to cover. We wanted something that you could pick up on the way into your high-stakes meeting, you're running into a specific situation and you could actually come up with a couple of approaches on the fly that would work in the moment. So that was really the goal. And then 30 years of working with senior leaders across a variety of industries, there were patterns that kept coming up over and over again. I found myself talking about very similar things with lots and lots of clients and it seemed, gosh, people should just know this. We should be able to get something out that people could actually get ahead and not have to learn the hard way, if you will. Steve Odland: Yeah. It is interesting and it's consistent with virtually every C-Suite member that I've ever talked to, that the job right before that was a prep job or an introductory job to the C-Suite role. They thought that they knew what was going to happen and [00:02:00] what they needed to do. And then when they got there it was entirely different. That's really the theme of this book. Jennifer Eggers: Absolutely, 100%. That's what we started to call the C-Suite fallacy because so many executives think that the jobs they have while they're being groomed or the jobs they have before the C-Suite are going to prepare them. The truth is they get promoted because they're exceptional specialists, whether they ran a function or they drove results. They solved hard problems fast and they're used to being the person in the room that makes things happen. But then they move into an enterprise role and the job, the whole game changes. At that level, leadership's no longer about being right or working harder or being the expert. It's about making decisions that can survive the visibility, the politics, the competing priorities, and the board scrutiny. Just these highly visible jobs. But a lot of leaders get caught because they don't suddenly become less capable: the rules just change and most organizations act as if that shift is just automatic. You're just going to get there and magically know what you're doing. Steve Odland: And this is true at the [00:03:00] CEO level, which we've seen many times as well, not just the direct reports to the CEO and the C-Suite because the CEO then, like all of the C-Suite members, has to expand their focus on multiple stakeholders. It's not just employees: it's customers, employees, owners, community, the political class. All of those things, depending on which C-Suite seat you're in but it's balancing all of that. Jennifer Eggers: I think people underestimate a lot of that. It surprises me how often it surprises a lot of my coaching clients that I'll have them draw the Venn diagram or the stakeholder map and say, okay, you're really balancing multiple constituencies. If you're a functional leader, you're still in many ways the go-to for your function but you also have to balance the role you play with your peers in the C-Suite. You have to balance your relationship with the CEO, in many cases it's the board. And for the CEO it certainly is the board and even external stakeholders, which may be [00:04:00] somewhat new at that level. Every one of those constituencies represent what I call a totally different job. You almost have to build a pie chart to say how much time am I going to spend with each of those constituencies and how am I going to set up my function or my business unit so that it runs without me needing to be in the weeds? Steve Odland: This is part of the reason that you have said that success with C minus one executives doesn't always mean success at the C-Suite because they're not necessarily trained or accustomed to dealing with this multiple constituency. Jennifer Eggers: 100%. As a functional leader or a business unit leader, you're often rewarded for effectiveness, decisiveness, speed. You own something, you're driving outcomes in a lane that you understand very deeply. But at the enterprise level, you really have to look at competing priorities. You might have to make a decision that suboptimizes your function or your business unit as you look across the enterprise. Those trade-offs, when they [00:05:00] disadvantage your former function or business unit, those are really hard. You have to also influence peers that have as much authority as you do and those external constituents underneath a level of visibility. There's consequences there that really change how every decision lands. I don't think there's any training ground for that. I can't think of a single role in a corporation where you're really prepared for that unless you ran a large-- and I'm talking larger companies here-- but unless you ran an entrepreneurial firm where you had a broader scope, I think it's really difficult. And it's not that functional expertise doesn't matter. It's that it's incomplete. The enterprise leadership really requires a broader operating model, different altitude. Steve Odland: Yeah, it's just a piece of the puzzle. In your book and in your practice, how do you advise people who are below the C-Suite but want to get there? How do they train? What kind of experiences should they seek in order to be better prepared for the C-Suite? Jennifer Eggers: Yeah, that's the [00:06:00] $64,000 question. As much as we wrote the book for the C-Suite leader, I think the level before the C-Suite, if you can read it and get good at some of these challenges. When we wrote the book, there are 12 chapters and they are all really specific problems that we see over and over again. We interviewed hundreds of C-Suite leaders to say what are the things that you had to deal with? The more you prepare for that-- and that preparation involves how do you manage diverse stakeholders? How do you increase your, what I would maybe call, gravitas? How do you figure out how to command that respect? How do you figure out how to deal with feedback? There's all of these things. Managing stakeholders very strategically is probably one of the most important things that you can do. But I think just getting good at all of these issues. Even managing talent. There's so many things that you can think about before you get there. If you start thinking enterprise wide, not just your function, you can really start to prepare yourself for this. Steve Odland: Yeah. Part of it is thinking and broadening your focus, which you're saying. [00:07:00] Part of it is, though, maybe getting some experience beyond the function that you're in. Either cross-functional experiences that are moves where you go into another function... Jennifer Eggers: Oh, 100%. Steve Odland: Right? Or cross-functional teams. Jennifer Eggers: Correct. Yeah, 100%. I always I tell people even as they enter the C-Suite, if you go in there , and let's say you were the chief marketing officer (CMO), you're the head of marketing, and you go in there and you don't really know a lot about finance. Or maybe enough to run your function but you're not an expert or in that or a particular business unit, go learn it. Go find a mentor in that space. Go do an assignment or do a role or at least get close to the person who runs it today. Get some mentoring in any kind of cross-functional roles so that you can really understand the bigger picture-- not just how you fit into it but how everybody fits into it. I think is one of the most critical things you can do. Steve Odland: The other thing you could think about, to the extent that you control the organization beneath you, is to bring over a trusted advisor from the function that you view yourself as deficient in or [00:08:00] weaker. Let's just say that you're "in training" for the chief human resources officer (CHRO) role. Find a finance partner and just live with them, metaphorically, in order to try to really understand the other function and a broader viewpoint. Jennifer Eggers: Yeah. Steve Odland: You see that work as well, right? Jennifer Eggers: Oh my goodness. I'm just thinking of two or three different clients I have had in the last year or two where I've said, okay, I want you to go talk to the chief financial officer (CFO) and see if they can get them to mentor you. One of them, in particular, was the head of international sales and they were looking at her to take over a big business unit. They kept saying she doesn't really understand how cash flows in the organization, it's a really complex business model. They were really doubting her financial ability. We paired her up with the CFO. She actually traveled with him, went to visit sites, really asked a ton of questions, and just learned a ton about the flow of cash in the organization. As soon as she started demonstrating that, she was promoted within six months. I had another one that was a chief revenue officer, which is more of a marketing function. We did the same thing with her. She learned just [00:09:00] speak differently about finance and about the numbers, like leading with the numbers. Those mentoring relationships and finding those advisors that can help you. We had one that hired somebody to work for them that knew a lot more. Certainly surrounding yourself with people who are stronger than you in those areas can really help. Steve Odland: What I hear you saying is that the individual needs to be a little self-aware and understand. Yeah. A little bit, right? Jennifer Eggers: A little? I don't know. Steve Odland: Yeah. And be honest... Jennifer Eggers: Maybe a lot. Steve Odland: And have a really honest conversation with yourself. Here's what you're really experienced at and what you're good at. Here's what you're not experienced at. And then go attack it. Jennifer Eggers: Full on. We try to do that with coaching. I think that's one of the great benefits of having somebody actually go do not just a fill-in-the-blanks 360, but go do an interview-based 360 and find out what does your boss, what do their peers, what do your peers think of you? What do they think your gaps are? And then you go nail that. You go fix it, you put all your focus into that, and you turn [00:10:00] that narrative around so that you can make it go away. Become the expert in something that you are known for not knowing and then all of a sudden you start to enhance your qualifications. Steve Odland: Yeah. And on the way up, the skills that are really valued and get you promoted are expertise in field and function and, hopefully, leadership and those kinds of things. But in order to succeed in the C-Suite, it's really all about teamwork because you have to move, you have to lead your function, whatever C function that is. You have to be able to do it within the team that is the total C-Suite. That oftentimes is a big a big step for people. Jennifer Eggers: It's a huge step because you are really thinking across functions, across stakeholders, across consequences. Again, not what's best for your area but what's best for the enterprise. What we see more and more of is at that level, the people and the processes that you need to work through are often [00:11:00] people and processes that you don't own. So influence becomes a tremendously valuable asset. I just go back to stakeholder management, which I think is a Catch-22 because a lot of times people get to that level and they think, "Oh, I don't have to worry about networking anymore. I've got my stakeholders, they know who I am." But really, strategic stakeholder management is one of the number-one things that you can do that people just don't even think about. Steve Odland: In order to have an enterprise-wide view or mindset, as you say, you really have to understand the enterprise. How should these people coming up get a really good sense of the breadth and the depth of the enterprise? Jennifer Eggers: You nailed it a little while ago when you said experience and having cross-functional roles and going out there. But I also think it's a level of intellectual curiosity because while those things are great, there's always going to be the person that gets there that didn't do enough cross-functional roles. Or maybe they just don't have that mindset. A lot of times you get to the C-Suite, you get in a meeting, and, you [00:12:00] know, they're talking about something that you're really not that familiar with. I always tell people to think about where are the stress points in the process. Where are things breaking down? If you can insert yourself and go learn everything you can about those pieces, whether it's go meet with your peers, go find out who you need to talk to, go visit sites, go do ride-alongs. Just ask a lot of questions. You have to dive in and get to know the areas that you don't know. Volunteer to work on projects that are in places that you haven't touched before. The more you do that, the more credibility you build. Steve Odland: Yeah. We're talking with Jennifer Eggers about how to get to the C-Suite and mastering the C-Suite. We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to C-Suite Perspectives. I'm your host Steve Odland from The Conference Board and I'm joined today by Jennifer Eggers, the founder and president of LeaderShift Insights. That's a really interesting title. What is LeaderShift Insights? Jennifer Eggers: When we started the company, you're always looking for the catchy name and that [00:13:00] kind of thing. What we realized is that as you move up through an organization leadership shifts. The mindset that you lead with has to shift. On one hand you can go back to the phrase, what got you here won't get you there. And that's true in any role, right? All the way up through an organization. I think that's true. But when you get into the C-Suite, your whole mindset has to shift. There's six mindset shifts in the book that we were able to pinpoint that says, here are things that you really need to think differently about as you move into the C-Suite. Probably the biggest of which is this notion of really leading at enterprise altitude rather than thinking about a function or a business unit. There are a lot of mindset shifts that need to really rethink the way you think about leadership when you get to that role. And so it, it's the "leader shift." Steve Odland: Yeah. And it's a tongue twister. Jennifer Eggers: Yes. Steve Odland: Jennifer, before the break, we were talking about the team dynamics that happen in a [00:14:00] C-Suite in order to be successful. In the book you talk about what you call invisible power dynamics, which is among peers and so forth. Talk about what you meant by that and why that's important. Jennifer Eggers: One of the biggest things when you get to the C-Suite is that the game changes and the power dynamics suddenly become important because you are responsible for leading things that aren't in your area. You're responsible for getting things done through other people. Understanding the way power works and how stakeholders interact becomes more critical. At the top level the title is real, right? But it doesn't just buy you the authority. The title's not enough. You can have the role, the scope, and the seat at the table and still not have decisions stick. You really only have that authority when people trust your judgment. They believe you're acting for the good of the enterprise and they see consistency between what you say and what you [00:15:00] do. The way you demonstrate that, and not just the way you demonstrate it but the way people see it and where you demonstrate it, are really important in those power dynamics. So that includes peers, the CEO, the board. The organization is really watching how things really work. You have to back that authority up with trust, stewardship, and follow through. Otherwise the authority just stays on the org chart. It goes back to figuring out who's got the power, why they have the power, how they have influence, and then how do you influence the power players to really get the things done that you need to get done. That notion of influence doesn't work without the power dynamics. Steve Odland: Yeah. As I listened to you, it sounds to me like it's not so much power per se in the old-fashioned term where you've got position power. It's really interrelations between people. And at the end of the day organizations are networks of people who have to get along and work. If you were designing an AI or a [00:16:00] neural AI network or a neural network, you would have to have all the electrodes and work and connect it. It's no different with people. The people have to work together. What I hear you saying is don't rely on position dynamics but focus on the relationships. Jennifer Eggers: That's absolutely insightful. The other thing about relationships, I'll just say, when I think about kind of power-- and you're right, it's not the old timey definition of power-- but when I think about those relationships, every constituent, and when I say constituent, I even mean your stakeholders. So your peers, your boss, other senior leaders, whatever. Everybody represents a bunch of constituents. It's not only important to get to know the players, it's important to get to know who they represent. So that notion of stakeholder mapping really becomes multidimensional. It's not just who are the individuals, it's who are they going to let down if they have to do something that you want, which [00:17:00] may not be advantageous for them, right? So then you have to figure out what's in it for them and who's behind them because that's the only way you're going to be able to see their point of view and really get them to move. Steve Odland: Yeah. You also talk about the importance of system design in an enterprise scale. What does system design mean? Jennifer Eggers: At the top of system design is obviously strategy for the organization, right? Every organization, we hope, has some kind of strategy. But how aligned are we really to delivering that strategy? How clear is that leadership team that they understand what the organization needs to be able to do, organizational capabilities, to drive that strategy? And then how clear are they also on what are the gaps in those capabilities and how are they going to close those gaps and really work together to deliver the capabilities required to drive strategy? Once you figure out what that is then it becomes how do we structure the people? How do we structure the organization to drive those capabilities? How do we prioritize our investments? I look at system design as [00:18:00] the very holistic way that an organization runs. In many organizations there's something on paper around governance or there's some org chart. But there's also the informal piece, right? When those are aligned it becomes a whole lot easier to really be more efficient in how to run an organization. Steve Odland: You talk about starting with strategy, which I think is just really so important. It's not so much words on a page. It's really a complete and total understanding down to your bones across the C-Suite in a consistent fashion of what you're trying to accomplish. Because when you're in the C-Suite, it's not the human resources (HR) strategy or the finance strategy or the marketing strategy. It's the enterprise strategy. It's the organization strategy and you share constituents. So you're all on the same page. Hence the need for teamwork here. But in order to move that, what I hear you saying, is the importance of change management. It doesn't just happen because somebody says, let's do it. You have to get everybody to go together. It's far more difficult to get the [00:19:00] entire team to buy in, to own it, and to move together. When I hear you use some of these terms, it comes back to old-fashioned change management. Jennifer Eggers: In many ways it does. What we find is that almost every CEO I meet, almost every client I have, will say, "Oh yeah, the team's aligned. We're aligned." I always ask, are they really? How do you know they're aligned? There's always the litmus test of asking people to articulate the strategy in their own words and do they get it? One of the things we see is that there's oftentimes jockeying for position, fighting for resources. If we get an extra couple million, where do we put the money? What do we put it into? Is it a new marketing thing or is it a new HR system? Or is it an investment in a business unit? When that team really does the work to get aligned around a capability model and assess the gaps-- not every capability gap is created equal, right? We can optimize the heck out of payroll but we haven't driven a dime of revenue-- so if we can align around what are the real strategic gaps that we need [00:20:00] to close, then there's no fighting for resources. We know exactly what investment is going to drive our strategy the farthest, the fastest, and we're all going to work together to make that happen. Even if it's an investment in HR that maybe takes something out of marketing or it's an investment in a business unit that means that we're not going to implement our new enterprise resource planning this year. The team is aligned and there's a lot less infighting and a lot more efficiency in everybody jumping in and doing the right thing for the enterprise. Steve Odland: So just in the last couple minutes, wrapping up and thinking through all of your points in your book, any final thoughts on areas that you would advise rising C-Suite members to think about? Jennifer Eggers: There's a few big ones, right? When I think about big shifts that people need to make, they have to shift from being the owner of a piece of the business to being a steward of the whole. And I like the word steward of the business because I feel steward of the organization is more of the role of holding the enterprise. They also have to move from personal effort [00:21:00] to really leveraging other leaders. You're not going to succeed at this level doing it all yourself. You have to stop relying on your title and start building influence. Those things can all be done before you get there. You can practice those things. You can work on those things. And then you can also get comfortable with the fact that power, politics, ambiguity, those are part of the job. They're not distractions from it. They are the job. So the more you can focus on getting better at managing that, the more you prepare yourself for when you really get there. Most of all, you have to stop asking how do I get my area right, and start asking what does the enterprise need from me now? That's the real shift from enterprise and ownership to stewardship and consequence. Steve Odland: Alright, we'll leave it there. Jennifer Eggers, thanks for being with us today and sharing your thoughts on your new book, Mastering the C-Suite, and all of the things that are necessary for rising C-Suite folks to get there.[00:22:00] Jennifer Eggers: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to be here. I really enjoyed the conversation. Steve Odland: And thanks to all of you for listening in to C-Suite Perspectives. I'm Steve Odland and this series has been brought to you by The Conference Board.