intimidating. It was great to know someone thought I was a high potential, and frightening to think about the responsibilities and implications of such an endorsement – especially at such an early stage in my career.
But this story is not about the details of the feedback I received, nor is it an ego trip related to being told I was a high potential. The point is that this one discussion embedded an indelible image in my mind about the importance of real feedback – good or bad – and the implications and responsibilities of great development that must accompany the feedback in order to make it meaningful. That one meeting changed my life.
Ever since that day, stimulated by my own experience, I have been obsessed with better understanding how to identify, develop, and prepare leaders for leadership roles. As a career-long HR leader, I have a particular passion for working with and enabling other HR people to figure out what makes for great HR, and for great HR leadership. Therefore, think of this book as a compilation of thirty-three years of many mistakes and a few smart moves made, challenges won and lost, and lessons learned and lessons I should have learned based on my own experiences. It is also a nod to the experiences of hundreds of HR and non-HR leaders – friends and colleagues whom I have had the pleasure to work with and learn from.
THREE is written for high potential HR emerging executives who want to accelerate their effectiveness and business impact, and for the bosses, peers, colleagues, friends, coaches, mentors, and teachers who want to assist them in doing so. There is even something in here for line leaders who are looking for ways to get the most out of their HR people – leaders who want to raise the bar on everyone's expectations of HR, including their own.
Chapters 1 and 2 will make you think about yourself – what you want to be known for as a leader and how well or poorly you are controlling your own destiny by managing your own development. These self-management elements are a crucial foundation to enable HR people to be better leaders themselves, and to therefore bring out the best in others.
Chapters 3 through 10 explore what the very best emerging and experienced HR leaders know and do. These chapters will cause you to consider whether you are focusing on the right capabilities, competencies, and content that will make the biggest difference to your effectiveness as an HR leader – now and in the future.
Chapters 11 and 12 illustrate the importance of learning from others. We will benefit from the unvarnished perspectives of eight academic thought leaders who study and work with HR executives and organizations all over the world, and we will also learn from input provided by over 100 highly experienced and up-and-coming HR colleagues, all of whom have a lot to say about what it takes to be successful as an HR executive.
I am fortunate to be in a profession I love, surrounded by incredible colleagues who make people and organizations more effective. Thanks to them, and to you, for making a difference – every day!
Ian Ziskin
June 2015
Sag Harbor, New York
THREE PulseCheck (Before)
Before you read this book, I recommend you allow yourself the luxury of a little self-reflection time to consider your own strengths, development needs, aspirations, and actions as an HR leader. The THREE PulseCheck will help you consider what parts of this book might be most meaningful for you, and where you will need to put some extra attention and effort if you want to close a few capability or experience gaps.
Be brutally candid with yourself. Everyone else is already talking about you – and they are not holding back. Your secret is out. People know you are not perfect. They are discussing your strengths, development needs, and potential.. but they are probably not discussing these things with you.
Scale
1 = Don't do/don't know anything about it
2 = Rarely do/don't know much about it
3 = Sometimes do/know something about it
4 = Often do/know a lot about it
5 = Always do/know more about it than most
What are my one to three biggest potential strengths and weaknesses relative to the above dimensions that I need to explore further while reading THREE?
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CHAPTER 1
Act Like It’s Personal
Personal Leadership Philosophy
In his book, Leadership Is an Art, Max DePree defined leadership as follows: “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant” (DePree, 1989, 11). I can’t think of a more appropriate way for HR people to think about themselves as leaders.
Our job as HR executives is to cause people and organizations to be more effective and to address reality with brutal optimism. We help others to see challenges for what they really are, confront them, and resolve them. It is also our job to serve others – not to be subservient, but to serve the needs of people and the organizations in which they work. Serve them by making them better and more effective. Serve them by helping them seek the truth, obtain real feedback, and deal with change. Serve them by enabling them to develop their talents and be their best. Serve them by giving them the confidence, courage, and capabilities they need to make important things happen and deliver results. Serve, not be subservient.
Despite the criticality of the HR executive’s role in helping other people be better and more effective leaders, I find that most HR leaders do a terrible job of figuring out who they themselves are as leaders. Like the cobbler’s children, I think we spend so much time worrying about how to develop others that we give precious little thought to who we are and what we want to be known for. While you might believe that there is a noble unselfishness in this approach, it is also a sure path to leadership mediocrity.
Personal Leadership Profile
It is virtually impossible to invest in and build capable leaders without first investing in and developing ourselves as HR leaders. The very best HR executives I know have a point of view about themselves – what they believe in, what they want to be known for, how they want others to see them, how they hold themselves accountable, what their leadership brand is – they have a personal leadership philosophy. And, once they have a clear point of view, they actually tell other people what it is. Not in an arrogant way, but in a clear and confident way: “Here is what I stand for, and here is what I expect of you and others.”
The personal leadership philosophy can take many forms and may be shared with others in many ways. But there are two things
