Provide status reports
Moorehead was told that he was being groomed for the position of CEO, but that didn’t mean the job was just going to be given to him. He would have to earn it and prove he was ready for it.
That was a message his father made clear to other leaders in the company.
“Upper management was always given the right to ask a question at any time and get an answer,” Moorehead says. “If they wanted to know, ‘What’s the plan with Scott?’ Dad would tell them what the plan with Scott was. His plan was, ‘I think Scott is going to have the skill set to do this some day.’ He was clear with the fact some day it could be right. He was also clear with the fact that it was mine to screw up.
“He wasn’t going to empower the wrong person. That made people fairly comfortable. People see the transitions in families a lot and so many times you see it fail. They didn’t want the father to hand the son the keys when the son didn’t know what he was doing. He made it aware to all the top-level management that there was going to be no transition unless the time was right and the person was right.”
The fact that you’ve identified someone as having a future in your company as a leader puts a bit of pressure on you to see that it works out, even if the person you’re grooming isn’t your son.
So you need to be cautious in how you present your feedback to others on how the person you’ve selected is performing.
“Too much affirmation that this is the right person can look like you’re stretching it a little bit,” Moorehead says. “Too little may be perceived as the CEO doesn’t know if it’s the right person.”
In this type of communication, it again comes down to consistency. A little bit of structure can be helpful to you, your trainee and the people who can help you get your trainee ready.
“However you choose to do it, the amount of repetition that you’re going to use to give feedback or how you’re going to gauge how somebody is doing, stay consistent,” Moorehead says. “That’s part of what any CEO is. You have to understand where you want to go and then you have to have the people you want to take you there understand it clearly.”
But in the end, you can only do so much to help a person become a leader. It’s a lesson that doesn’t go away once you attain a leadership position.
“If you’re in a construction company, sometimes you have to pick up the hammer,” Moorehead says. “If you’re in a manufacturing company, sometimes you work the line. You have to work with your people and you have to let them have a voice. You have to show them that you have a passion for it. I don’t think anybody wants to follow a leader who doesn’t have a passion for what they are doing. At least I don’t.”
HOW TO REACH: Moorehead Communications Inc., (765) 651-2001 or www.ecellularconnection.com
