Tag Archives: developing leadership intelligence

How Iceland bounced back

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Recently I discovered PopTech and via PopTech a talk by Iceland’s current President, Olafur Grimsson, about how Iceland bounced back following the stark economic crisis of 2008.

Iceland’s experiences illustrate some general principles of the modern world.  The first of these is this:  that we – whether “we” equals country, company, society or some other entity, are subject to the effects of events beyond our control.  In Iceland’s case, even before it fell prey to the effects of a global economic crisis its economy was severely affected by the eruptions of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.  As leaders we are naive if we fail to understand that our plans will be affected by events outside our sphere of influence.

Grimsson’s talk suggests, for me, a second important principle:  that our success as leaders lies as much in how we respond to events as it does in the events themselves.  Watching Grimsson’s 20-minute speech I am particularly struck by the way he interrogates the events that affected his country in order to identify the key questions that needed to be answered in a time of major upheaval.

In case you missed the link to Grimsson’s talk, click here.  And if you’ve been following my recent series of postings on developing your ability to think strategically, add this one to your list – it’s a neat example of stepping back to see the big picture.

I welcome your comments and responses:  what comes up for you when you watch Grimsson’s speech?

Locked in conflict?

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If you’re locked in conflict and don’t know which way to go, take a moment to watch this short clip on YouTube.  I offer it because it may help you to reconnect with your sense of humour (it’s funny!) and also because it offers a key insight into conflict and why it persists.

A number of thinkers in the fields of negotiation, mediation, communication and conflict highlight the need to let go of positions and focus on interests.  Maintaining a position involves taking the view that only one course of action – often requiring a particular response from another – will work and seeking to persuade that other to follow your path.

When you can understand what needs will be met by your preferred course of action you can find alternative ways of meeting those needs.  Equally, if you’re willing on both sides to understand each other’s needs, you can explore ways in which both people’s needs can be met.  Strangely, when you identify actions you can take to reach your desired outcomes and which do not depend on a particular response from another, the conflict tends to go away.  In case you need it, remember the mantra “you can’t change the others, you can only change yourself”.

Marriages can be saved, business deals can be struck, countries can avoid war by letting go of positions and connecting with underlying interests.

Developing your strategic thinking: sharing your strategy with others

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In recent days I’ve been writing about developing your strategic thinking and in this posting I come to the question of how to share your strategy with others.

This question implies that you do have a strategy.  It’s been interesting to me in recent days, reading Richard Rumelt’s recently published book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, to notice how he differentiates between having a strategy and communicating it.  The bottom line?  It’s not enough to be charismatic and engaging – you need to engage people in a strategy that is more than just “fluff”.

In case you want to develop your skills in communicating strategy and getting people on board, I offer a number of suggestions below:

  • Observe how others communicate and engage others:  Any number of historical figures have had to communicate a vision to and engage others, including Churchill, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and more recently, Barack Obama.  Even as I write, my list gets longer, and I am especially thinking of people who were successful in engaging others in a vision for the future that was subsequently realised.  Desmond Tutu, for example, is widely associated with South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission which played an important role in a successful transition to post-apartheid South Africa.  In the UK Aneurin (“Nye”) Bevan is recognised as championing what has become known as the National Health Service – free health care for all Britons.  Not all such leaders have been popular or have championed causes which win modern day support – any number of political or rebel leaders nonetheless successfully championed a cause.  The more you engage with their story the more you develop your understanding of the many different ways in which leaders engage others in a vision and strategy for the future;    
  • Get behind the examples to understand the theory:  My old favourite, Goleman’s book The New Leaders, outlines research which identifies different leadership styles and how they work in practice.  It’s a great place to start if you want to understand the impact of communicating a vision and how you can cultivate this style as one of a number of styles you need to lead effectively.  For an example of what different leadership styles look like in practice, you can do worse than hunker down with the grainy old war film, Twelve O’Clock High.  This film shows two different leaders leading the same group of men in different ways and with dramatically different outcomes.  If you can get past the subject and the age of the film it is the perfect companion to Goleman’s book;
  • Develop your communication and speaking skills:  If it’s speaking that’s holding you back, there are many ways to develop your skills.  Toastmasters has often been used by leaders to develop skills in speaking publicly.  Others have trained in neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP), nonviolent communication (NVC), Roger Schwarz’s Skilled Facilitator Approach and other approaches in order to develop a wider range of communication skills.  Of course, you don’t need to go through training to develop your skills in communication.  As an alternative you might want to seek out opportunities both inside and outside work to practice and develop your skills.  These may range from sitting down with your team to talk about the future to speaking at conferences or facilitating discussions.  A good coach can support you in identifying steps you can take which provide growth as well as supporting you in re-framing old fears about speaking.

This is my last posting – for now – on how to develop your skills in thinking strategically.  It’s been quite a series – and at the same time, I recognise the limitations of these suggestions:  if you want to develop your abilities in this area, you need first to identify what specifically you need to develop in order to move forward.  “Strategic thinking” involves quite a bucket-load of skills.

If you have questions that you’d like me to grapple with, please share them using the comments box below.  Many of my postings are inspired by and reflect my work with people in leadership roles.  Equally, if you have other comments or suggestions that could help readers to develop their ability to think strategically, please share them.
 

Developing your strategic thinking: shaping a compelling strategy

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In recent days I have been writing about how to develop strategic thinking, recognising the importance as a leader of the ability to see the big picture, to shape a compelling strategy and to communicate in ways which engage.  So what does it take to shape a compelling strategy?  I offer a few ideas and suggestions to get you started:

Firstly, you might like to carry out some research:

  • Get curious about successful strategies:  There are many ways to come at the question of shaping a compelling strategy and all of them have something to offer.  One place to start is to think of the businesses that have been highly successful and to get curious about why:  what is their strategy?  I think instantly of organisations that have consumer appeal (my own favourites include First Direct banking, Ikea and Pret a Manger).  One example that has become an internationally recognised case study is the Seattle Pike Place Fish Market.  One downside of its fame is that the DVD (for which, follow this link) is priced at corporate prices, though the book (When Fish Fly:  Lessons for Creating a Vital and Energised Workplace from the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market) is easily available.  Another favourite of mine is Clive Woodward’s autobiography Winning! because it highlights what it took to turn aspiration into practical strategies which in turn led to the England Rugby team’s World Cup win in 2003.  Remember, too, to look close to home – to parts of your organisation that have been highly successful or to organisations you have worked for yourself;
  • Get curious about unsuccessful strategies:  Famously, Gerald Ratner’s strategy for his jewellery business was a winner until, in 1991, he shared it publicly.  He talks about this on YouTube in a plug for his book.  Look around you to find examples of strategies that haven’t worked.  Some of them may well be inside your own organisation.  Many of them will be out in the wider world:  what was Lehman Brothers’ strategy before it went bust in 2008, for example?  And what was the ailing Apple’s strategy prior to Steve Job’s return in 1997 as CEO of the company he had co-founded?  In truth, one of the easiest ways to access examples of bad strategies is by reading what some of the academics have to say about bad strategy, which leads me to my third suggestion…
  • Read what thinkers about strategy say:  Currently I am reading the recently published book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt – it’s a goldmine of examples of both good and bad strategy and it also includes thought-provoking ideas from the author on what differentiates the two.  An enduring favourite is Jim Collin’s Good to Great which reflects the findings of detailed studies of what differentiates organisations which have been successful over time from those that have not.  Equally, Sydney Finkelstein’s book Why Smart Executives Fail and What You Can Learn From Their Mistakes includes insights into the errors that smart executives make in shaping and executing a compelling strategy.

When you’ve carried out your research, you might like to distil your learning in two areas in particular:

  • Distil your learning into key measures of a successful strategy:  Rumelt’s Good Strategy, Bad Strategy highlights the risk in shaping a compelling strategy which fails to address key challenges or which fails to translate grand aspirations into a concrete plan.  Before you shape your own strategy, I suggest you identify key hallmarks of a successful strategy – these are the measures against which you will test your own strategy before you start to think about how best to communicate it to a wider audience;
  • Shape your approach to creating a successful strategy:  Once you know what your key measures of success for creating a successful strategy are, you are in a position to shape your approach to shaping your strategy for your own business or part of the business.  Your approach may vary depending on the needs of the business – from sitting down with a blank sheet of paper, through consulting with those you lead to engaging the support of specialist consultants.  

 Once you’ve distilled your learning and designed your approach, you’re ready to…

  • Shape your strategy:  It’s tempting to offer key pointers for your strategy and – at the same time – this topic seems too important to summarise in just one bullet.  By now, though, if you’ve taken time to broaden your view (follow this link to read about this subject), to do some research into what differentiates successful strategy, to distil your learning into key measures of a successful strategy and to shape your approach you’re ready to execute your approach in order to shape a successful and compelling strategy.

I wonder, do you have experiences you can offer here to help other readers?  What have you found most helpful?  Equally, what questions would you like me to address in future postings?

Developing your strategic thinking: broadening your view

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In recent days I have been exploring the theme of strategic thinking and what it takes to develop your strategic thinking.

In practice, leaders who think strategically combine strong cognitive capability (or at least, strong enough) with a good dose of curiosity.  They also apply their curiosity to the right canvas for their role – looking sufficiently broadly and far ahead to be able to make sound decisions and taking into account a range of factors:  thinking, for example, about which other parts of the organisation will be affected, about the future implications of a decision and about the impact on a decision of future events.  Strong strategic thinkers are always curious – they don’t wait until they have a task to do before seeking out new information.  Instead, they are constantly and systematically seeking out information relevant to their job.

So if you are thinking about how to develop your own ability to think strategically, you might want to ask yourself:  how curious am I?  And what are the things I’m curious about?

In case you’re wondering how you might develop this broader view, I offer just a few suggestions and resources below:

  • Understanding your current context:  This is about understanding the context of your current job and implies seeking answers to some key questions:  What’s the external context in which your organisation sits right now?  What is the overall strategy and aspirations of your organisation?  How does your role fit into the wider organisation?  How does it contribute to the wider organisation?  Who are your key customers?  Which parts of the organisation do you need to collaborate with and how?  What other considerations (e.g. organisational culture and politics) have an impact on your role and with what implications?
  • Looking at the bigger picture:  The question “what’s the external context in which your organisation sits right now?” is one that merits further exploration.  Some of the strongest strategic ideas come from people who have insights that others miss because they are constantly scanning the broader environment to see what’s changing and thinking about the implications of those changes.  Making regular time to explore wider social and economic developments is one way to do this.  How?  You might start by asking senior leaders in your organisation (and beyond) what publications they read on a regular basis – the Financial Times, Economist and Harvard Business Review are just a few old favourites.  One way to find out what some of the world’s leading thinkers are thinking about is to dip into the library of 20-minute talks available on line at www.TED.com – this is just one way to broaden your thinking.  Engaging with other people can also be a great way to broaden your thinking – for example, by joining your trade federation or other external body;
  • Developing a strategic mindset:  Perhaps you enjoy reading books.  If you do, books to stimulate your ability to think strategically include The McKinsey Mind:  Understanding and Implementing the Problem Solving Tools and Management Techniques of the World’s Top Strategic Consulting Firm (by Ethan M. Rasiel and Paul N. Friga), Competitive Strategy and Competitive Advantage (by Michael E. Porter) and The Pyramid Principle:  Logic in Writing and Thinking (by Barbara Minto).  Equally, if you prefer to step into an environment that stimulates your thinking, one colleague recommended the work of Richard Olivier under the Mythodrama brand (see http://www.oliviermythodrama.com);
  • Exploring an alternative world:  In the corporate world, it’s easy to imagine a world of people who are also working in corporations.  In practice, many are not.  Recently I heard a statistic that in my own country, Great Britain, 50% of the population are working at any one time, whilst 50% are not.  The percentage of people who actually work in our major corporations is small.  Looking outside the corporate world to stimulate a broader awareness is one way of developing your ability to think strategically.  One colleague, for example, responded to my request for ideas by writing:  “It doesn’t get more strategic than the North American Indian practice of considering all decisions they make based on the impact decisions are likely to have on the following seven generations…. clearly they didn’t have analysts and a stock market”.  If you want to explore this further, check out www.g7sp.com/php.  In my own City of London, St. James’s Church, Picadilly has a long tradition of sponsoring speakers from many different traditions under the name Alternatives, many of which are available on line.  This is just one way to broaden your thinking beyond the confines of your own organisation.

I’d love to hear from you.  If you have followed up on any of this suggestions, which did you find most helpful and why?  And if you’ve found other ways to develop your capacity to think strategically, would you be willing to share them here?

Strategic thinking: more insights into what it looks like in practice

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I was struck this week by two comments on a discussion thread I initiated as I prepared to write about strategic thinking, and how to develop it.

One came from Alan Wingrove, on the discussion group Human Resources UK on LinkedIn.  Alan’s comments serve to illustrate just why strategic thinking is so important at senior levels, as well as hinting at what it takes to develop it.  He also makes a couple of reading recommendations:


I currently coach owners and senior managers around their vision and strategy and in my previous ‘life’ I delivered leadership development at a ‘strategic level’.


One continual challenge is to move them from the immediate (day job) to the future (the more holistic view). As John [another contributor] says, learning the theory is different to being able to do it, which is a change of mindset. As I became more and more senior I found myself having to take a more and more external view, to evaluate the impact these external events would or could have on my organisation. For example, I still hear owners of businesses tell me that they have little interest in the current Eurozone crisis, as they cannot see how it effects them. The truth is, it may not immediately, but the longer term effects definitely will.


This necessitated a change in perspective, which I find people grasp best through case studies and the power of stories. I do tend to agree with you about books like ‘Good to Great‘ and I have just finished reading ‘Good Strategy Bad Strategy‘ by Richard Rumelt. In this, he gives excellent examples of how some organisations have flourished through good strategy and other household names have ‘bombed’ through bad strategy, where people have not considered what is coming over the horizon – and he looks at the thinking of those creating the strategy.


A second posting by Fiona Pearson on the same thread also points to the realities of developing strategic thinking:


For managers in new roles the shift from operational responsibility to a wider remit is not always easy especially when day-to-day issues still demand attention. In the current climate people are often bridging two roles while reshaping is progressing. A common complaint I hear about newly promoted managers is a sense of frustration that they are not “thinking strategically” enough and are overinvolved in operational priorities and detail. New reporting relationships, perhaps into the senior team can highlight a surprising lack of awareness of strategic issues. Managers now charged with developing a vision for their service can flounder, unsure where to start, not daring to ask because everyone else seems to do it with ease. Previous experience of contributing to strategic planning often only exposes people to snapshots of the process rather than the full map. The underlying complexities described in an earlier comment can seem impenetrable.


I wonder, do these comments ring true for you?  And what have you found useful in developing your ability to think strategically?



Strategic thinking: what does it look like in practice?

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On Monday, I wrote about strategic thinking in my post Developing your strategic thinking.  But what does it look like in practice?

Now this, in my view, is often quite challenging to identify.  Why?  Well, there are several reasons.  Firstly, we’re told that strategic thinking is rather difficult to do (and yes, perhaps it is) and yet, in practice, a great strategic thinker makes the complex quite simple so that his insights are hard to spot.  Secondly, the great strategic thinker often sees things ahead of others.  When he or she first has an idea it may be seen as sheer lunacy by others who haven’t seen it yet.  In hindsight, it may seem rather obvious.

Some of the issues and ideas in the Western world that reflect the strategic thinking of our forbears are in the social rather than the business realm.  Who in the Western world would question the idea that slavery should be illegal?  How many people would really believe in 2011 that women should be denied the right to vote?  How long will it be until same sex marriage, or women priests or inter-racial adoption are just non-issues?  For this reason, insights into strategic thinking can be found in many historical speeches (as well as insights into how to share a vision in ways that are compelling).  Writing this article I made a note, for example, to get my hands on A Call to Conscience:  The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King.

The business world is equally littered with stories of famous business people whose predictions, with hindsight, look utterly ridiculous.  One of the most famous of these was by Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM who, in 1943 said “I think there is a market in the world for maybe five computers”.  More recently, Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., is said to have said in 1977 “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”.  It took Bill Gates to turn this round and to hold the vision of a computer in every home.  (And as I write, I wonder how many people might say “What, only one?”).

One example of strategic thinking in practice was supplied by my colleague in the coaching profession, Emma Chilvers.  Emma offered a link to an extract on YouTube from the film Other People’s Money – follow this link to see just one example of strategic thinking in practice.  From the business world, I was struck by Ray Anderson’s response to questions from his customers about what his company, Interface Carpets, was doing to support the environment.  Anderson went from not having an environmental vision for his company to having a vision for his company which recognised unequivocally the need to manufacture products in ways that are totally sustainable.  Anderson speaks of his personal epiphany in the DVD The Corporation, itself a visionary film.  You can also see what Anderson says on YouTube by following this link.

And how do you develop your ability to think strategically?  Keep reading!  I’ll be offering some thoughts on how to develop your skills in this area over the coming days.

Developing your strategic thinking

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Recently I have been assessing candidates for senior roles – a steady trickle of leaders who have their next (and often more senior) role in their sights.  Over time, as well as seeing the unique strengths and areas for development of each individual, I am starting to build a view of the patterns across all the candidates.  One area has particularly intrigued me – the area of thinking strategically.

Now, “strategic thinking” is a rather awkward term, not least because you find as many definitions as you find people talking about it.  Some people think of the kind of deep and detailed analysis that major companies make when they invest in the support of the McKinsey’s of this world.  Some people think of the level of decision-making they like to delegate just one or two levels up the chain.  So, for my purposes in writing, it seems important to define the term.

First things first, I am talking about a behaviour – or more properly a cluster of behaviours.  In particular, I am talking about the ability some leaders have to take a long-term and holistic view of the sum of activities for which they are responsible, setting clear direction based on an understanding of their internal and marketplace context as well as their aspirations for the future.

In truth, whilst the need to think strategically is particularly apparent in an organisation’s most senior roles, it exists from the beginning of our careers.  Early in our careers, for example, it is the difference between executing a task and seeing the full range of tasks for which we are responsible and the context in which we conduct them.  In our first supervisory role, it embraces the need to understand the full range of tasks to be executed by those we supervise and the impact they have on other areas of the business.  With each elevation to a new role the scope of our thinking needs to expand if we are to be truly effective – I often think of people in new roles as needing simply to raise their heads a fraction to achieve a new line of sight:  looking more broadly at the context in which they are working and a little further ahead.

Why is strategic thinking so closely associated with leaders at the most senior levels of an organisation?  Perhaps because, at more senior levels, leaders take on responsibility for deciding on the direction of the organisation and the implications of that direction for the work others do and the way it is structured and organised.  And in what way is strategic thinking more challenging at these levels?  In truth, strategic thinking is about the underlying ability to absorb and process diverse and increasingly complex data, crystallising it into core themes.  It also involves going beyond what is known and certain to make informed guesses about what is possible in the future.  My goodness it looks simple when leaders do it well!  At the same time, the levels of cognitive ability required increase as we take on larger and more senior roles.

But what if you need – or want – to develop your capacity to think strategically in preparation for success in your new role?  This is a question that one client posed in a recent debrief following an assessment and a question I’ll be exploring in the coming days.  I’ll be sharing my ideas – and I hope you’ll share your ideas, too.

Simple tools for stepping up to the next level in your new job

Developing as a leader,

Finally, you’ve got the job you were after.  Your (current, or maybe new) employer has seen in you the characteristics they are seeking for the next level of senior management.  Now, you need to work out what those characteristics are.

Maybe you have the support of a mentor or an HR department – of someone who can offer you a clear job description and behavioural competencies.  Maybe not.  Either way, you can do worse than use the consultant’s old favourite – the two by two grid – to take stock of where you’re starting from on your path to establishing yourself as an effective player in your new job.

It works like this.  You create a two by two grid and, along the top, you write (left hand column) “senior managers do” and (right hand column) “senior managers don’t”.  On the left hand side you write (top row) “I do” and (bottom row) “I don’t”.  Then you can brainstorm, taking care to think about which box each behaviour belongs in.  The resulting grid highlights four areas:

  • Strengths you can leverage in your new job (top left).  These are the behaviours you have already developed that are well matched to your new role;
  • Areas for development (bottom left).  These are behaviours which, if you invest in developing them, will  help to position you in your new role and to increase your personal effectiveness.  As it happens, some of them may be quite simple for you to develop – unrealised strengths.  Others may be less natural to you;
  • Behaviours to let go of (top right).  These are things you do and which may have served you well in previous roles.  Now though, it’s time to let go of them or to convert them into strengths in your new role.  Converting existing behaviours into strengths happens when you are able to take a behaviour to the next level and in this way to adapt it to the needs of your new role;
  • No go areas (bottom right).  These are things you don’t do and which people in your target role don’t do either.  You can ignore them for now – unless they hold some kind of attraction to you.  If they do, you may need to find new ways to meet the needs these behaviours have met for you in the past.

Overall, your answers in the grid offer the basis for a quick-view assessment of your readiness to excel in your new job as well as the basis for more detailed developmental planning.  I offer an example below – and I wish you success in your new role!
Senior Managers Do
Senior Managers Don’t
I do
·        Establish clear and challenging goals for the area under their control
·        Provide clear responsibilities to staff and hold them accountable for results
·        Put in place clear processes for managing risk in the team
·        Do things themselves that they could delegate to their staff
·        Get lost in the detail of individual initiatives and lose sight of the overall agenda
·        Let staff ‘delegate upwards’ and determine the agenda
I don’t
·        Influence effectively – socialising ideas individually before presenting them at meetings
·        Establish a clear vision for their area and communicate it to staff
·        Think about who’s best placed to do what in the team and allocate roles or tasks accordingly
·        Celebrate success with their staff
·        Take the credit for the work of their staff
·        Hang out in the pub with their staff – except on carefully chosen occasions

When we discover areas in which we need to develop

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On Tuesday, I wrote about playing to our strengths.  Today, I’m wondering if I’m going to contradict myself.  What if you have an accelerated career and then, suddenly, you bump up against a limitation that could trip you up if you go any further on the path you are following?  This was the experience of one client I assessed recently.

After our initial feedback session he did all the right things.  He tested the assessment feedback against the perceptions of a variety of colleagues, recognising the value of diverse perspectives.  He looked for ways to bridge the gap in his repertoire, seeking out a mentor with strengths in the areas in which he needed to develop.  He started to explore a wider range of possibilities for his next career move, recognising that there could be benefits to moving diagonally rather than straight up the ladder.  These benefits include:

  • Broadening his experience and in this way broadening his understanding of the business;
  • Building on his strengths whilst opening up opportunities to close the gaps in his repertoire;
  • Broadening his understanding of the range of roles in which he could succeed.  This in turn carries the potential to build confidence and self esteem by reducing the pressure that comes when you have only one target role in mind.

As a result of his actions, what looked for a moment like a full stop turned out to be something quite different, opening up a broader range of possibilities than my client had previously had in his sights.

How does this work to his strengths?  How might it work to yours?  Taking action to develop in areas in which we lack strength may reveal an as yet hidden talent.  This can lead to a new injection of energy and momentum in our careers as leaders.  And yes, in truth, it can lead us to discover an area in which we lack natural ability.

Initially, this doesn’t always feel good.  Some high performers, faced suddenly with a situation in which they lack the skills they need, start to weave a story about how they were never as good as they thought they were, how they lack what it takes to succeed… suddenly, their self esteem takes a dramatic tumble.

Others, though, recognise that they can’t be good at everything.  The most canny amongst them are able to weigh the likelihood that they can bridge the gap and assess the benefits if they do.  Perhaps they will decide that it’s essential to bridge the gap and easy to do:  clearly, this is a “tick yes” scenario.  Perhaps they will recognise that it’s essential to have these skills and hard for them to develop in this area:  this can be a “tick delegate” scenario.  The best leaders know when to delegate and they also feel comfortable about sharing their limitations openly as well as their strategy for plugging the gap.

When in your career have you come up against areas in which you lack the skills you need to succeed?  What strategies have you used to plug the gaps?