Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 07

W hen consultant Scott Eblin started working on The Next Level in 2004, he was trying to help people promoted to an ex- ecutive-level position for their first time. But now, as the third edition of his suc- cessful guidebook has been published, he has a broader perspective. “The content of the book helps with a lot of next-level situations beyond a promotion to the executive level. For instance, you could be in the same job you were in a year or two ago, but the scope has gotten a lot bigger since then. Or, you could be in the same job, but the performance bar has risen significantly since you took over. Or maybe – almost certainly, actually – you and your organization are operating in a constantly chang- ing competitive environment,” he writes. The word competitive hints at his main audi- ence – business – but otherwise the situations will feel highly familiar to government executives and the advice highly helpful. The next level can involve picking up new be- haviours and mindsets as things change and let- ting go of behaviours and mindsets that once worked but no longer serve you in the new and bigger situation. Talking to executives, he finds that 98 per cent say that letting go is the harder of the two. He suggests that’s because picking up new skills is a cognitive challenge – relatively easy for intelligent people who become execu- tives – but letting go is primarily an emotional challenge. And the core emotion is fear – fear that others will be taking on tasks you used to do so well and that you can’t quite trust them, or that you will be uncomfortable not being as fully in- volved in those tasks as before, or that people will discover they don’t really need you. “Most people are fearful of letting go because they don’t know what’s coming next or what’s expected of them in the new, next-level situation,” he notes. And that’s vital because he points out insecure people make lousy leaders. You have probably seen at least one or two in action (or inaction) dur- ing your career. It’s not a pretty sight. So as you move into or within the executive level, the first challenge is not the tasks your boss has laid out for you to accomplish or the changes you are eager to make now that you have the chance but the more basic issue of keeping insecurity from getting the better of you. “You must build a sense of grounded confidence in your presence and in the idea that you have important contributions to make as a leader,” he says. In turn, you need to understand how you per- form when you’re at the peak of your performance since that’s how you want to operate regularly. “Being a successful executive does not require you to change who you are, but it may require you to change what you regularly do so that you are more likely to operate from the start of how you are at your best,” he says. You will have to let go of some elements that took you to this next level. Not who you are – that should stay the same – but what you do. And that can be uncomfortable. Your technical or functional knowledge brought you to this level. But now you need more. If you remain fixated on those techni- cal/functional tasks you’ll not have the bandwidth or perspective required at a higher level. You therefore need to: • Get comfortable with changing what you do by letting go of the need to feel like a functional ex- pert. • Intentionally shift to learning mode to clearly understand what success looks like in your new role. • Be prepared to act without having all the infor- mation you might like to have. “At the executive level, you are playing on a bigger and broader field but with less information and control than you had as a functional leader. In partnership with your colleagues, you have to learn what you can, ask good questions that draw out the infor- mation needed to make a decision, and then act. Most of the time, you won’t have all the informa- The Next Level By Scott Eblin Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 304 pages, $27.95 42 / Canadian Government Executive // February/March 2019 The Leader’s Bookshelf By Harvey Schachter The Next Level