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Research Paper Exclusive Content

The Critical Link: Lessons Learned From New Directors

Summary

It’s time to talk about Directors (not the film or theater kind).

 

The role of “Director” may not have an established, defined set of responsibilities in the way “front-line leader” does. Directors are experienced leaders, often on the path toward executive roles. They may be managers of managers. Or not. One thing we know for sure: Directors, historically, have not received the same level of developmental support given to leaders below and above them.

Directors, however, sit at the nexus of strategy and execution. As companies struggle to solve more complex, multidisciplinary problems and realign their workforces with shifting strategies, they are increasingly turning the spotlight on this high-impact role. WIth good reason. Director performance can accelerate or obstruct organizational success. The best ones hold everything together. The worst allow gaps that can lead to organizational fissures running up, down, and sideways.

What are the challenges that Directors face today? What is the transition into this role like? What can organizations do to develop and support these critical leaders? To find out, ProjectNext Leadership conducted a research study targeting leaders recently promoted (or hired) into Director and Senior Director roles.

“Our tagline for directors is ‘translating strategy into work.’ Our senior leaders are up there thinking of the strategy. Employees have to execute. Directors take the vision of the leaders and have to turn it into bite-size, executable work. If that band of leadership is broken, then there’s no communication between the senior leadership and the executors of the strategy.”

-Recently Promoted Director, Tech Firm

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Key Findings

An early, perhaps obvious finding: The Director role is different from other leadership roles. Leaders who have been promoted or hired into the Director role are asked to walk a tightrope, carefully balancing a number of opposing tensions as they are the linchpins between executive leadership and the workforce at large.

Directors have the herculean task of “holding it together” in a few key dimensions:
 

  1. Communicating strategy and creating strategy 

  2. Delegating outcomes and delegating leadership 

  3. Leading the team and leading across the enterprise

  4. Being “here” and being “elsewhere”

“A Director needs to be someone who can bridge the gap between decision makers and doers..” - Director, Fintech Firm

Let’s take a closer look at each of these requirements.

“A big takeaway for me was that the move to Director was a bigger jump than I expected. I didn’t understand what it meant to move into this role. I always said each transition into the next level was the hardest, but I now know that the move into the Director role was the biggest and the hardest jump. You throw in more visibility and impact, and it’s a major leap.” – Director, Global Fintech Firm

Research Process

The study had two phases. First, we surveyed more than 50 Directors who were in the Director role less than 18 months about the skills required, challenges encountered, and keys to success.

We then did indepth interviews with a dozen leaders to gain fresh insights into the survey themes and explore nuances of the role.

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1

Communicating strategy and creating strategy

In our survey, “engaging others around the strategy” was selected by nearly half of our respondents as the biggest stretch for them coming into the Director role. This challenge shows up in two ways. The first is around clearly communicating the strategies developed by the leaders above them to ensure that their teams know where the organization is headed and why. Engagement with strategy drives meaning and focus as people prioritize their time.

The second challenge is about filling in the blanks. Directors need to create strategies for their own teams so people can actually execute the broad-brush direction from above. Directors talked about how they aren’t just conduits of direction. It’s up to them to translate the company’s direction into more focused, local strategies to drive execution. They also need to realign and adjust on a frequent basis, flexing between high level strategy and specifics of team execution.

Of Note…

Leading others through change was not identified as a top challenge in our survey. When asked about this finding, many of the Directors we interviewed said change has become such a constant that it’s less noticeable. Change was likened to “the water we swim in,” with the challenge being keeping teams aligned to the rapid twists and turns of execution rather than managing reactions to change.

2

Delegating outcomes and delegating leadership

Delegation is a fundamental skill, developed by frontline leaders as they move from managing their own work to managing teams to get things done. At the Director level, delegation takes on additional dimensions. More often than not, given the more senior leaders working for them, Directors need to delegate outcomes, not tasks. One leader we interviewed explained, “Now I tell my leaders what the objectives are, and they have to figure out how to get it done.”

As they’re more removed from how things get done, Directors also have to delegate leadership. It’s up to them to set the leadership tone for the people managers directing the work. If they don’t figure out how to identify and develop strong leaders, they won’t be able to keep their own focus on strategy and their expanded responsibilities. They’ll be pulled into the operational weeds and spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with escalated issues.

“When I rose into the Director role, I felt like I got thrown into a new ‘jetstream’ of organizational communications. People across the business are asking me for information, there is more talk about how we all work together, how we make decisions, how we manage expectations with each other at more senior leadership levels. This was a noticeable shift - both for the exposure to this communication flow, but also to the need to collaborate much more with colleagues across the business.” – Director, Global Tech Firm

“I’ve struggled with delegating before. Now, I’m delegating the culture. Meaning now I have less control of the culture I create as I’m more dependent on the managers who report to me to create it versus doing it myself. Managers are now propagating the culture - so I need to think about how to foster culture in a different way than before. And yet, the expectation is that I’m still in the weeds so I need to stay close to the work. I can’t only delegate - I need to be engaged enough to know what’s going on. That’s challenging and a weird balance.” – Another Director, Global Fintech Firm

3

The first two findings reflect the expanded responsibilities

Directors need to navigate as they drive the results that they are tasked to deliver in their part of the business. Their leadership focus is primarily vertical. The Directors we interviewed, however, talked about spending as much time working across the organization as they do with their own teams. They are the glue that makes the organization function – the “grout between the tiles” of departments and business units that otherwise would operate independently. One Director said, “The challenge when moving into this role was the extent to which I needed to establish broader networks with people who didn’t necessarily share the same goals.”

The expanded focus of leading across the enterprise is not just a time challenge. It requires a new set of leadership capabilities, including gaining a deeper understanding of enterprise objectives, building strategic relationships, creating win-win cross-functional solutions, and facilitating quick decision making across silos. Yet most Directors we interviewed said they were woefully underprepared for this new responsibility, with their lack of confidence originating in a lack of development. (Their comments align with another research study by ProjectNext Leadership, which indicated that most organizations focus exclusively on vertical leadership development.)

4

Being “here” and being “elsewhere”

As Directors work through the tensions described above, they grapple every day with the question of “where should I focus right now?” Their bias for action and problem-solving responsiveness, which worked earlier in their careers, can now be a liability, because Directors are pulled in just too many directions.

Their teams seek clarity on objectives, priorities, and ways to execute successfully. Their cross-business colleagues require attention, too, as Directors are pulled into that “jetstream” of organizational communications, needing to educate, problem solve and set expectations with key partners. Meanwhile, the more senior executives expect Directors to have a firm grasp on operational details when problematic situations arise while staying focused on strategy, and also while “diving into the details” of situations that happen to catch the executives’ eyes.

Directors must therefore constantly assess where they can add the most value and what “altitude” they should operate in. 30,000 feet or the weeds? Strategy creation or operational details? Thinking or doing? The team or the enterprise? They need to manage their time with laser-like intention amid an expanded set of leadership demands.

“One of the biggest adjustments is time management. I’m constantly thinking about where I am needed versus where I’m not.” – Director, Global Tech Firm

Companies that make the most of the Director role need to do four things well.

  1. Identify leaders with the willingness and ability to become Directors. Recognize that not every leader wants to do the never-ending dance between strategy and operations. Also keep in mind that not all leaders who excel at managing vertically have the mindsets and skills to work effectively across the organization. Therefore, promotions to the next level up should not be automatic. They need to be intentional, weeding out leaders who want the Director title but not the work.
     

  2. Offer thoughtful onboarding processes for new Directors. Given the radically expanded responsibilities these leaders face, provide clear expectations and education on how the Director role goes beyond leading more people. Make mentoring and role-specific leadership tools available to help new Directors get up to speed faster and succeed over the long term.
     

  3. Invest in targeted leadership development. It’s not enough to recognize the unique challenges of the Director role. Fill the expertise gap with a mix of cohort-based and individualized learning. Cohort learning provides a scalable approach to exploring the mindsets and skills Directors need to be successful. It also creates a supportive community that Directors can tap day to day. More individualized support like assessments, coaching, and mentoring can focus Directors on the strengths they bring to the role that still matter and the areas they need to develop for their expanded role.
     

  4. Provide regular opportunities for relationship building across the enterprise. Merely pulling leaders from across the business into meetings won’t solve critical business problems. Leaders, especially Directors who may be taking a more enterprise view for the first time, need to establish partnerships fueled by trust, curiosity, and common ground. At the same time, the leaders we spoke to feel more alone than ever. Directors who get to know other Directors and more senior leaders as people, during interactions outside of focused meetings with packed agendas, will be able to navigate competing priorities and pressures of leading across. By better understanding the unique challenges of the Director position, organizations can better prepare these leaders to translate organizational strategy, drive results and leadership bench strength, lead effectively across the business, and move seamlessly between strategy and operations without burning out. The rewards? Increased innovation, a culture of high performance, and a thriving workforce.

The Implications

As work environments become more complex, and the role of Director increases in importance, the struggles that new (and, quite frankly, veteran) Directors face become greater liabilities.

 

No longer can companies promote leaders into Director roles and leave them to navigate the tensions identified in our research on their own.

 

Our study, however, suggests that more and more organizations understand these high stakes and are taking action to invest in Director performance.

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Our Organization

ProjectNext Leadership takes an integrated approach to building robust and diverse senior teams, executives and leadership pipelines who can mobilize the 21st century workforce. We equip leaders in high impact roles to be resilient and be their best. These leaders take on some of the most important roles, but typically with the least support. We aim to change the landscape of leadership by building the capabilities and ambition of these leaders to create progress in their organizations and, indeed, the world. You can learn more and download our report, Leading Across: The Superpower that Differentiates Today’s Top Senior Leaders, on our website.

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