Executive Leadership

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THE STEP UP: MOVING TO EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

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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

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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

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BUILD THE CULTURE YOU WANT

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The Cohort

-   small
-   tight
-   high-level

The Course

-   ten modules, video classes and online workshops
-   practice
-   review
-   three individual coaching sessions

MODULES

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

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

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)

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.

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

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

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

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

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)

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”.

Black Tee, Sitting, No Big Grin 1000xsom

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Right now the course is free. As you complete it, would love your feedback.