THE STEP UP: MOVING TO EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP
There is a moment in a management career when your point of view changes: from tactical to strategic, from function to company, from process to culture.
This is the step up to executive leadership.
Twenty years ago I promoted a member of my team from Director to VP for the first time. I realized I wanted them to understand how different their job would now be. How their new role had so much more to it - more vision, more breadth, more leadership.
So I wrote down a few notes under the heading "How to Be a VP" and passed them along to my newly minted leader. Five years later, he pulled a battered printed copy out of a pocket and said "I just used these. Again..."
This course is the continuation of my learning from decades of startup leadership, and hundreds of coaching sessions with executives and soon to be executives at growth companies in San Francisco and world wide.
It teaches you to take the step, successfully and with confidence.
THE COURSE IS FOR YOU IF
you are on the leadership team of a rapidly scaling company for the first time
you see that challenges are coming towards you fast as an executive, and want to get ahead of them, to expand your capabilities, now.
you are working at the Director level and want to be scale and stretch yourself to be ready for the next move
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
After taking the course I expect you to be able to:
MANAGE YOUR TIME AND ATTENTION
Be able to consciously and effectively manage your more precious resource.
TAKE A STRATEGIC VIEW
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore
BUILD YOUR PRESENCE
To your CEO, your executive peers, your team and the Board.
MANAGE DIFFICULTY
Difficult conversations, decisions, delay and oh my!
CONFIDENTLY COMMUNICATE
To your CEO, your executive peers, your team and the Board.
MANAGE DIFFICULTY
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore
BUILD THE CULTURE YOU WANT
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore
The Cohort
- small
- tight
- high-level
The Course
- ten modules, video classes and online workshops
- practice
- review
- three individual coaching sessions
MODULES
01
WHAT's THE JOB?
Learning outcomes
-
The difference between management (logical, cold) and leadership (empathetic, hot)
-
Building strategic view: two years, not two quarters, and compa-ny/industry wide, not department/group
-
Being a company level leader: having company-wide impact
-
Hiring: your highest impact function. High-level direction
02
MANAGING TIME AND ATTENTION
Learning Outcomes
-
Master this now! It’s not going to get easier
-
The Eisenhower Matrix for prioritization and how to use it
-
How to get Thinking Time: own your calendar, block your thinking time, take it
-
Know Your Patterns: your own addiction to being busy/under stress: why aren’t you delegating? Brain chemistry and distraction
03
Presence and Brand
Learning Outcomes
-
An understanding of “presence” and “gravitas”
-
How to find your own presence, and practice it
-
Presence and brand: presences creates brand
-
Brand: getting it out there
-
Inspiring: what inspires people. What is your “inspirational perso-na?” (we’re not all table-bangers, or speech-makers, but we can all be inspiring)
04
Executive Communication
Learning Outcomes
-
Basics of executive communication: short, confident, complexity compressed but not reduced
-
How to communicate up
-
Using Slack, email text without driving yourself and others crazy
-
Communication to inspire and motivate: what’s a vision, what’s a story? Basics of story-telling.
05
Hiring
Learning Outcomes
-
Setting up, and constantly tuning, a hiring machine
-
How to always be hiring
-
Clear thought and communication: of what you want, of who you are
-
Managing key relationships with the wider hiring team
06
Difficult Conversations, Difficult Decisions, Feedback, Dis-agreements
Learning Outcomes
-
Why difficult conversations are hard: human nature
-
Have them: why you delay and how to stop delaying
-
Techniques: SBI, which conversation are you having (logical vs emo-tional)
Notes
-
Lots of practice in this one
07
Delegation, Accountability, Trust
Learning Outcomes
-
How to set a) the goals and b) the guardrails at the right level: you’re using values and principles now to set direction. What are they?
-
Trust and Delegation: delegation now needs to be a super power. Trust gets in the way. What trust is, and what it isn’t
-
Trust, groups, culture and bias: who do you “trust”, and why?
-
Holding your reports accountable
08
Values & Culture
Learning Outcomes
-
Culture is an efficiency, a short-cut, means you don't need so much process
-
Too much process => not enough culture
-
-
Recognizing and counteracting bias in culture
-
see it, fess up to it, practical steps to change it
-
Finding your personal values
-
how are they expressed?
-
how are they modeled?
-
-
How to culture
-
Repeat it
-
Celebrate it
-
Symbols, Stories, Rituals
-
09
Structure and Flexibility: Thought Traps
Learning Outcomes
-
Up to Director level, your job is imposing and managing structure
-
now it's more squishy
-
nobody bats 1,000. Managing “failure” is now part of your job
-
-
Thought traps: yes or no thinking, need for control, lack of trust (re-visited)
10
Outcomes
-
Reflections
-
Plans and Practice going forward
JOE DUNN - WHO I AM
I’m a leader, mentor and coach with over twenty years of experience in fast-moving software startups.
Three became successful public companies, and fourth sold for $250M+
My experience covers everything from being one of “three guys in a room” to an officer of a public company. (And a traveling surf bum, barely capable yoga student, skilled improv performer, and twenty-five year student of meditation).
I coach leaders of all kinds (CEOs, CTOs, Engineers, Sales, Marketing) in rapidly-growing tech companies in San Francisco and the Bay Area, from seed-size to “unicorns”.
