ADVERSITY: WHAT MAKES A

LEADER THE MOST

by: David L. Dotlich
Issues: January / February 2005. Categories: Leadership.
Every leader goes through passages, significant or even
transformative personal and professional life experiences. Some
passages are positive; others are upsetting, even damaging. For an
organization, learning how to help a leader or potential leader
negotiate these passages will deliver lasting and satisfying benefits.
As this author states, it will help an organization better recruit,
measure and develop people to become leaders of others.
Great leaders are lauded for their successes. But, paradoxically, what
makes good leaders great are the trials and tribulations of failure.
Very often, the lessons learned from confronting fear and uncertainty,
and from experiencing frustration, transform good leaders into great
ones. Today, leaders who have endured adversity are most likely to
be the ones with the resilience and resolve to succeed.
When we think of business careers, we assume that great leaders
develop and rise to the top in a hierarchical progression. Modern
organizational life exists to celebrate success and deny failure no
one ever notes a significant setback or mistake on their rsum. But
the fact is, successful careers are not successful continuously. There
are ups and downs, twists and turns, detours and digressions, some
triggered by professional events and some by personal ones. And
even though it may be embarrassing or painful to discuss how they
stumbled, an overwhelming majority of leaders privately admit that
thats when they learned the most.

We call these adverse and diverse experiences passages, because

they take you from one place to another: You see the world and
yourself differently after youve gone through the events and
emotional states that define each passage. What differentiates these
experiences from ordinary difficulties or hurdles is the three elements
they all have in common:
While they are inevitable, they are random and unpredictable. Adding

to the confusion is the fact that you cant predict how you will respond
or where you will end up after you go through the passage. And the
more significant the event, the more unpredictable your response and
the results. The only certainty is that the way you respond will define
your present and future career.
These passages are emotionally and cognitively intense. They test
and push you. You will have to call on resources you didnt know you
possessed, rely on skill sets you previously ignored, assess your
priorities and re-evaluate your basic values.
As a result, your sense of yourself will change in some fundamental
way. Who you are, what youre capable of doing and your place in the
world will all shift.
Based on interviews with more than 75 managers, including leaders
from Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, GE, Bank of America, Arthur
Andersen, Medtronic and other companies, as well as years of
coaching senior executives at top companies around the world, we
have identified the 13 most common passages in the life of a leader.
Some passages are associated with positive career moves or work
events; others have to do with unhappy developments in your
personal life. Some present an opportunity for pushing the
boundaries of your comfort zone and enriching your experience;
others are common but no less upsetting challenges. One thing,
however, is guaranteed: Every leader is likely to experience some or
all of these passages over the course of his or her career.

Thirteen passages in the life

of a leader
The passages can be organized according to the matrix in figure 1.1.

As bad as some of these passages may sound, it is not the event

itself that derails a career, but how you react to it. It is how you handle
working for a bad boss, being fired or being acquired that determines
whether the impact is positive or negative, and whether you become
a stronger leader or remain the same. Similarly, passages such as
obtaining your first leadership position would seem to provide great
opportunities; however, some people learn and grow because of their
approach to the opportunity, while others merely get a new job.
Because the results of a passage depend on the person, the most
important factor in transforming a passage into a positive leadership
development experience is self-awareness. Leaders who do not
succeed tend to be people who lack self-awareness. Researcher and
author Daniel Goleman described this basic truth when he identified
emotional intelligence as a crucial component of effective leadership.
Ineffective leaders dont understand their own motivations or
acknowledge their weaknesses; as smart and skilled as these people
may be, their lack of self-knowledge derails them, especially when
they face difficult people or challenges. High-performing leaders,
however, are aware of their strengths and understand their
weaknesses, and see themselves as continuously learning, adapting
and responding to both positive and negative circumstances.
Making sense of the significant passages of life and career requires
time and space for reflection. Recalls General Mills vice-chairman
Ray Viault, Following my divorce from my first wife and a career
setback, I went through a whole process of What am I trying to do?
Where am I going? What is important? What is not important? How
am I going to behave? I literally sat down with a piece of paper and
worked through all of that and decided that this is the way Im going
to lead my life. It was like a second birth. Socrates said it all when he
wrote, Know thyself. Until you really know yourself, you can never
reach down and grab all the strength thats within you.
Because of the orientation and imperative for action found in most
companies today, there are few opportunities for leaders to step back,
reflect, and understand their inner motivations and strengths. People
simply dont have a chance to think deeply about whats happening
and how it affects who they are. In most places today, someone who
is observed thinking is suspect. Consequently, leaders are
encouraged to persevere through any personal setback or challenge;

consequently, they remain oblivious to their impact. Thats not only a

waste of an important leadership development experience, its
actually detrimental to the development of good leaders.
Leaders who are not in touch with who they are and what they feel
are less effective. They may reject feedback, fail to see potential or
actual negative consequences of their actions, respond poorly to
stress, or miss important relationship signals from others. Perhaps
most significantly, they dont deal well with change. As Viault points
out, only when leaders understand themselves and acknowledge
their contributions and limitations do they demonstrate resilience and
the ability to adapt.

Reflection is the well-kept secret of effective leadership. Although

some people are naturally more introspective than others, everyone
can improve his or her ability to reflect, and therefore to grow and
learn. Heres a quick exercise: Consider how you recently
experienced a particular passage. Based on this passage, answer the
following questions:
When you were going through this experience, did you have much
time to step away from it and think about what was occurring?
After the events had wound down, did you reflect on what had taken
place? Did you put this event into the larger context of your work or
personal life and attempt to figure out its meaning in the greater
scheme of things?
Did you engage at least one other person, besides your spouse or
partner, in significant dialogue about this passage? Was this
conversation confined to what happened and what you might do
about it, or did you talk about deeper issues-how you feel, your fears,
your expectations?
If the event had an adverse effect, did you admit to yourself or others
how you may have failed or come up short?
Is there anything you learned from this passage that motivated you to
reassess certain assumptions, made you aware of a certain
vulnerability, or prepared you to handle a similar passage better in the
future?

Becoming a leader:

Navigating lifes passages

While reflection is the main component of the navigation system you
need to move through lifes passages, it is not the only component
that makes a passage meaningful. There are five components in all.
(We cant really call them steps, because theyre not necessarily
linear and because theyre all part of moving through a passage.)
These are: acknowledging that a passage is occurring and that it is
significant; reflecting on why it is occurring; making sense of the
passage as a positive or adverse experience; integrating the lessons
of the passage into your life; and, finally, taking action to do things
differently in the future. Being aware of and employing all five
components as you go through a passage will enable you to emerge
fundamentally changed.

But how do these passages make you a more effective leader? Lets
consider an example. Today, we are continually seeing three
conditions that leaders in large, global companies typically encounter
and must master
They must create conditions for growth.
They must take an enterprise perspective.
They must, in some way, make a merger or acquisition successful.

Building trust
For all three of these situations, the common denominator for
leadership success is trust. Creating an environment in which
innovation and growth can flourish starts with the ability to have an
honest and open dialogue about balancing risk and reward, about the
advantages and disadvantages of different courses of action.
Harnessing the power of the enterprise requires building a bridge of
trust and respect across different and often separate functions or
business units so that everyone works together for one common goal.
Lastly, to create the conditions for productive work when youre
working with a newly acquired team or function, or reporting to a new,
unknown boss, or integrating two departments, requires the ability to

engender trust. It has become the leadership coin of the realm.

The ability to create trust collapses time in building relationships. And
given the tight time frame that most companies operate in today, its a
necessity. There are several ways to build trust. One way is to fight a
battle together. Another way is to open up about who you are
about the battles youve fought in your personal and professional lifethe defeats as well as the victories, and the lessons youve learned
from both.
Hierarchy often seems to minimize the vulnerability of the person at
the top of the pyramid. Paradoxically, it actually makes leaders more
vulnerable because it distances them from the rest of the
organization, from the people who might come up with innovative
ideas and whom you have to rely on to implement them.
Revealing your humanity helps to reduce the impact of hierarchy.
Thats another situation in which adversity can become an
advantage. By being able to recognize and respond to others
vulnerabilities, leaders create a stronger context in which they can
communicate throughout the hierarchy.
Observes Joseph Berardino, the former CEO of Andersen Worldwide,
I think leaders who do not expose themselves to their people, who
dont make themselves vulnerable to their people, cant effectively
lead because people arent going to think you are real.

The passage as a facilitator

of leadership development
The best developer of a leader is failure, says Richard Branson,
chairman of Virgin Airlines. Business history is full of examples of
leaders who learned from their failures and bounced back to become
more successful than before. After Steve Jobs was fired from Apple
Computer, he returned to his entrepreneurial roots and re-emerged at
Pixar, where he created new products with new technology. When he
came back to Apple, he had a new view of the market; with products
like the iPod, he redefined the industry. Jeffrey Katzenburg, too,

suffered a huge disappointment when he didnt become the CEO of

Disney. But he created a different-and successful-business model at
DreamWorks. Jamie Dimon was exiled from Citigroup, reappeared as
the CEO of BankOne, and now has returned to Wall Street as the
vice-chairman of Chase.
These examples are notable because the leaders experienced
crushing adversity at the peak of their careers, yet they came back to
scale still higher peaks. That said, its almost always better to
experience adversity earlier in your career than later. Youre laying
the foundations for future wisdom and have more time and
opportunities to apply it. We worry when companies anoint highly
talented young people and put them on a fast track for promotion.
They may move around the company gaining experience of the
organization, but they dont stay in one job long enough to experience
failure. Instead, we believe that companies should recognize and
treat professional passages as important experiences-exercises,
even-for developing better leaders.
In many companies today, leadership development tends to be
managed in a fairly narrow way. Attributes of leadership are identified,
usually based on performance competencies of current high-visibility
leaders. Leadership development aimed at this target is then
undertaken in a classroom-oriented, skill-based, cognitive
environment.
But when competencies define selection and promotion, individuals
who become leaders may be strong performers but not strong
leaders, only because the depth of experience is often not defined by
competencies and leadership models. For example, you may be very
good at sales, manufacturing or finance, or have succeeded at a
series of positions, but still lack the empathy, wisdom and maturity
required of leaders. In some cases, a leader can embody a
companys leadership competencies and still not be a leader others
want to follow.
In many fast-moving, successful companies, strong, successful
leaders who fail a challenge present a real dilemma to the
organization. Although failure is a powerful teacher, it can also throw
sand in the gears of succession planning. The paradox is that even

though Bobs failure may make Bob a stronger leader, it may also
make Bob seem weaker in the eyes of everyone else. Rarely is this
issue addressed during succession planning. We dont hear people
ask, But what did he really learn from that experience of failing at X?
or How will she now be more effective because of her failure?
Even more important, the life events that shape people-divorce,
death, living cross-culturally, personal transformation- rarely enter the
discussions that constitute leadership reviews. Companies act
instead as if the personal life of a leader doesnt exist.

The organization as a
facilitator

How can organizations facilitate leadership learning and growth in the

passages? We offer four suggestions:
Expand the view of potential leaders. Those in charge of core
people processes must assess and develop the whole person. This
means hiring individuals who have more than the right education,
background or core competencies. Hiring decisions should also factor
in the diversity and adversity each candidate has experienced, along
with exploring how or whether they have helped him change or grow.
As one CEO told us, If I want to find a global leader, I look for the kid
who backpacked around Europe in his 20s, not necessarily the one
who went from his BA to an internship at IBM. Similarly, a stronger
candidate may not have a string of successes on her rsum, but
may have been through an acquisition, divestiture, change of
direction or even significant failure. Not surprisingly, many smart
companies moved quickly to pick up former Arthur Andersen partners,
with the correct view that the implosion of that firm produced even
smarter professionals.
A broader view of experience will lead companies to ask different
questions during succession planning. The goal will be to determine
what passages people have been through and what theyve learned
from these experiences. If they encountered a career roadblock, what
did they do about it? Do they feel their work style or sensitivities

contributed to their experience? What did the experience teach them

about how not to lead? Answers to questions like these are much
more insightful about the whole person than questions such as, What
skills did you learn in your last job that will help you perform well in
this one?
Dont allow success or failure to define leadership development.
The best argument for why organizations should heed this advice is
what we call the developmental paradox, illustrated by the matrix in
figure 1.2.

As the matrix suggests, some people may be outwardly successful in

a given passage but still end up losing, because they learned little
or nothing from the experience. Conversely, the developmental
paradox also implies that you can fail in a passage yet still experience
high learning and growth. You can, for example, gain insight into your
derailment behaviours and work to modify them, increasing your
awareness the next time you are in a similar situation as well as
motivating you to change attitudes and behaviours.

We realize there is little margin or room for failure in todays

competitive business environment. What many companies dont
realize, however, is that by viewing leadership failure in a broader
fashion, they increase the odds for future success.
A common dilemma leaders must grapple with is how to promote
talented people into stretch assignments without risking the business.
The question is, How far can people be pushed? Frequently, our
advice is, As far as possible. Good developers find a way to
orchestrate learning opportunities and harvest the learning that
occurs from negative as well as positive circumstances.

In succession planning, performance reviews and other assessments,

its tempting to make quick judgments about people based on their
successes and failures. Were not suggesting that anyone should
discount performance but that more productive, open-ended
conversations will factor in answers to deeper, more probing
questions such as these:
What did this person learn when he succeeded or failed?
How has he changed because of the experience?
What else do we know about this persons life that has contributed to
her learning?
Given this experience, what are the areas for future growth?
Make every open position a leadership development
opportunity.
Currently, companies are focusing on experience as the best
developer of people. While the recognition that leadership
development must take place outside the classroom is positive, many
companies simply give people jobs and let them sink or swim. Were
suggesting that they provide support and guidance to those entering
these passages in the following ways:
Offer regular 360-degree feedback and talks with supervisors to
express concerns, ask questions and monitor progress.
Encourage reflection around new experiences.
Challenge people to take some risks; push them out of their comfort
zones.
Use coaching to help people talk and receive advice about issues
they may not feel comfortable talking to colleagues or bosses about.

Comments Viault, There ought to be an opportunity when someone

is working on a particular issue for them to come in and say, Youve
had lots of different experiences; youve been around in the world
longer. Id like to be able to pick your brain but not feel compelled to
do what you tell me. Let me take the best and leave the rest. That is
a valuable thing in a reporting relationship that rarely gets used.
Catalyze professional passages through leadership
development programs. Organizations should take advantage of
programs that prompt them to struggle with significant failures, stretch
assignments, new leadership roles and other passages. Companies
such as Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Washington Mutual, Novartis and
many others use Action Learning programs, whose essence is
providing people with challenging real-world assignments that are
packed with adversity and diversity.
Novartis uses Action Learning as the basis for its first-time manager
program. These first-time managers pick an issue theyre struggling
with in their new jobs and work on these issues in teams over a fourday period. The intensity of these periods, during which participants
attempt to create strategies to deal with their dilemmas, is
comparable to what is felt during a passage. More than 4,000
Novartis managers have gone through the program, providing the
company with a method of developing meaningful leadership on a
large scale.
The immediate benefits of using the lessons of personal and
professional passages to develop leaders include reducing the risk of
great leaders leaving the company, increasing leadership bench
strength and diversity, preventing organizations from firing leaders at
times of maximum learning, and identifying and defusing ticking time
bombs. But the deeper benefit of recognizing the significance of
these passages is that it humanizes the system. A broader
understanding of leadership effectiveness will be less driven by
competency models and more focused on a holistic view of how
leaders develop and learn. That, in turn, will lead to more intelligent
and sensitive choices in how we recruit, measure and develop people
to become leaders of others.