Do you have what it takes to become a superboss

Do you have what it takes to become a superbossDo you have what it takes to become a superbossSydney Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and the director of Tucks Center for Leadership. A consultant and speaker to senior executives around the globe, he is listed in Thinkers50, the worlds fruchtwein prestigious ranking of leadership gurus. Author and award-winning podcaster David Burkus recently hosted him on Radio Free Leader to talk about the surprising makings of a superboss, and what steps we can all take to become one ourselves.David How did you transition from studying the terrible decisions that people make to studying superbosses that attract and grow talent?Sydney After writing a couple of books on failure, I felt like there welches mora to the story that I hadnt really gotten to. If theres one thing that you need to do to thrive and live longer as an organization, its the ability to generate and regenerat e talent on a continuous basis.And that realization got me to think, Well, whos good at that? That brought me to Alice Waters, the famous chef and restaurateur from Chez Panisse in Berkeley. She pretty much created, or resurrected, the organic, farm-to-table local sourcing of high-quality food, and if you look at the number of people that worked for her and later opened up their own restaurants, its in the hundreds. I said, Okay, let me figure out what it is she did, and then I started asking, Well, who else is there?I started looking at one industry after another, from the National Football League, to jazz, to consumer packaged goods, to hedge funds, to advertising, to American comedy - really diverse industries. And in every industry I looked at, I was able to identify one, sometimes two, but mostly one person that had this outsized influence on the development of great talent. And those were the people that I came to call superbosses.David Thats an interesting insight, because I ve found that the moment you lay out some best practices or evidence-based suggestions to people, one of the most common responses is, Well, yeah, that works great for this, but it would never work in our industry. One of the things I like about unterstellung superbosses is that they come from every industry, sector, company, and geography. There are things that are tried and true, regardless of where you find yourself in a leadership role.Every industry is made of people, right? So people are a lot of times at the core of these problems. Its not like your industry would be exempt from that, unless your industry is run entirely by robots. But if it was, we wouldnt be talking about how to attract, retain, develop talent.Speaking of talent, one of the traits of superbosses is that they look for talent in unlikely places, or they look for new, untapped pools of talent. Tell us about how you found that insight.Sydney Well, every large company has sophisticated HR practices and standard methods. But superbosses Theyre not against any standard methods, but they also add their own thing. Theyre talent spotters, always on the lookout for great talent. I interviewed hundreds of people for this research, and you keep hearing the same story, in some version or another.Theyre not stuck to following the job description and saying, Who checks the most boxes? Theyre looking for people that check boxes they havent even thought about.One story was about Bill Walsh, the San Francisco 49ers head coach who won three or four Super Bowls in his time. One year, he went to recruit a highly touted quarterback, and he went out to see him practice. The quarterback was throwing some passes to his roommate, who was just helping him out. The roommate was on the football team, but not a star or anything like that. Walsh is watching, spending a few hours with them. He goes back, and on draft day, he ends up bypassing that highly touted quarterback and picks the guy that was catching the bal l for him. And that guy turns out to be Dwight Clark, the legendary 49er receiver who made the catch in the end zone to win a Super Bowl.When superbosses find someone, theyre willing to create an opportunity for them. Theyre not stuck to following the job description and saying, Who checks the most boxes? Theyre looking for people that check boxes they havent even thought about. Theyre looking for unusual talent, and to do that, youve got to look for it in different places - diamonds in the rough, if you will.David I love that insight, that when they find that talent, theyre willing to adapt the job, or even adapt a division of the organization, to fit that talent. They dont see it as just, We have this box on the org chart that is now empty because somebody left or got promoted, so weve got to find a carbon copy of that person. Sometimes its, Okay, theres this vacancy, and theres this really talented person. So lets rearrange things to make the best use of this new talented person . No new talent is going to be the same as the talent that created that opening. So every time theres an opening, we have to kind of rewrite the org chart to figure out the best way to use that new source of talent.One of the other insights I thought was really interesting in Superbosses was the effect of talent in teams, what you call the cohort effect - this idea that even though were encouraging teamwork and collegiality, were also encouraging internal competition. Superbosses navigate that balance perfectly, and it leads to far greater performance than if you stress one over the other.Sydney Yeah, within a team you want to create both collaboration and a degree of competition. One of my favorite examples of that is Lorne Michaels, the creator of Saturday Night Live. Hes been doing it for decades.Think about that show - you have to collaborate with writers and other performers to create a skit. But as you get later and later in the week, all these skits - three hours of materi al - have to get winnowed down into an hour. And that, in a sense, is the definition of competition When you have only so many seats around the table, and youve got way more people - or in this case, skits - than will fit.So if you want to succeed at SNL, youve got to learn to cooperate, to work with other people. But at the same time, you cant lose a bit of that edge that makes you want to win - you still want to get your skit out there on Saturday night. Thats the special combination.Within a team, you want to create both collaboration and a degree of competition.David One of the other insights I thought was really cool and counterintuitive was this idea of saying goodbye. In so many organizations, if you decide to leave, thats the end of the relationship youll probably never hear from anybody again. But superbosses say goodbye on good terms, not saying, Farewell but Keep in touch. Instead of responding with anger, they allow that relationship to continue, even if the departin g employee no longer serves the needs of the organization.Sydney Managing the flow of talent is going to be one of the biggest differentiators in business over the next decades. We know that many people are going to be looking for new opportunities. And the best people, of course, are always looking to grow. So its important to not only develop and motivate people, but also manage them out of the organization.And you get a big bonus, by the way, when you do this - you can become known as a talent magnet. Because if youve had people on your team that work for you for a while and then move on and are very, very successful, thats not a secret. People hear about that. Especially today, with LinkedIn and so much data thats out there, its not hard for us to figure out what the background is of the people that have done well. So new talent can look for where they came from and say, That could be a good breeding ground for me. Im going to go see if I can connect with some of those people.D avid Yeah, I agree. And if youre saying farewell on good terms, they can sometimes act as a source of new talent for you. If you let them grow and take on a leadership role in a different company, or even a different industry, youre now tapped through that relationship to whole areas of new talent.Sydney Thats absolutely right. Superbosses will even rehire some of those people after theyve had a tour of duty somewhere else for two, four, five years. But as you say, they can also tap into the community that their former protg are now part of.Because you helped them get better, theres this powerful bond. All it requires is for the boss, the leader, to continue to interact and to manage that network as a key asset. And its not networking 101 where you just talk to people now and then - its looking for business opportunities, its continuing to help other people even when theyve moved on. Its a lot more than just staying in touch.David I wonder if we could switch a bit What is the best advice youve ever received?Sydney The best advice Ive received Pretty early in my career, I had a masters degree. I didnt know what I was going to do, but I ended up being hired by my undergraduate institution to be an instructor. I wasnt doing any research or in a PhD program - I was just a teacher. I loved doing it, and when my two-year contract was coming up, Id done really well. And the department chair - I still remember this meeting - he says, You know, were not going to renew your contract, Sydney. And of course, my heart plummeted.Im firing you, and its for your own good.He said, The reason were not going to renew your contract is that if youre really serious about this, youve got to go get a PhD. Youve got to learn to do research, earn your stripes. You have to accomplish more than just coming here and teaching. Even though youre highly competent at that, its not enough. That, of course, pushed me in the direction of the career I ended up having, and it would not have been possible without that advice about getting your credentials, paying your dues, and doing what you need to do to become an expert at something.So the advice was, Im firing you, and its for your own good. And it was exactly right.David And, Im firing you on good terms, right? Which is exactly the insight we were just talking about.What do you believe that most people dont?Sydney I believe that no matter who you are - whether youre a CEO, a president, or a candidate for president - you are very, very similar to me and just about everyone else. And it might not look that way, because sometimes people are unbelievably wealthy, and have different skills, and intelligence, and experiences, but theyre just people. We dont like to get criticized, we stick our head in the sand, we procrastinate, and we have certain biases and emotions that affect our decisions. Everybody is like that.Its a great equalizer when you realize that, because it means that no one is truly better than you. The y may have accomplished things youve never dreamed of, but thats not the point. The point is about who you are as a person and what youre made of, and when we level the playing field, it allows everyone to say, You know, I dont need to be intimidated by someone that has this incredible rsum. Thats the path they chose. But I can choose my own path, and Im going to have an impact in my own way, in my own community, over the course of my own life. I find that very inspiring and meaningful.David Im right there with you. Even from a young age, I remember my brother would make fun of me about this, because wed go to different rock shows, and I never got starstruck, and he always did. I was always like, Hes just another guy. He might put his gold pants on one leg at a time, but he puts them on one leg at a time.Sydney Were talking about rock stars and CEOs and presidential candidates, but the people who shovel snow or come in to clean your office are people too, and they deserve our respec t. They deserve an opportunity to accomplish goals that are meaningful for them.Were all born with certain skills and capabilities from our genetic makeup, and its what you do with those that really means something to me. If youre born with all kinds of advantages - high IQ, wealthy family connections - what are you going to accomplish from there? And if youre born in much tougher circumstances, whats your contribution to the world? Its a different contribution, but its just as meaningful.This article originally appeared on Heleo.