Reaction Versus Reflection

To help you gain this perspective and insight, let’s look at two leaders we have encountered in a senior leadership program who have recently entered this passage.

Aaron Reacts

Aaron was a senior executive with one of the country’s largest corporations. He had worked for this company for more than twenty years, and he’d done well, receiving a series of promotions that helped him become the head of a function. When a GM retired and there was an opening, Aaron immediately told his boss he wanted the job. Like many executives, Aaron had thought a lot about running a business, and this was his opportunity. He lobbied hard to obtain the GM position, and the CEO told him he was definitely a candidate. His coworkers assured him it was a cinch; no one in the organization was as qualified for the job or had worked so long and so well for the company. Aaron was sure he would be rewarded for his loyalty.

He wasn’t. The job went to an outside candidate. Aaron was at first humiliated, then outraged. He felt betrayed. He didn’t know how he could show his face at work with any confidence, since everyone knew that he’d been passed over by the organization. Aaron felt strongly, “This is the end of my career, at least in this company! How can I expect my direct reports to respect me after something like this!” Nonetheless, he showed up at work after the announcement and immediately encountered the Chairman and CEO in the elevator. Unable to contain his rage, he confronted the CEO and indirectly accused him of being misleading. He also said he felt it might be difficult to trust the company or its leadership again. The CEO said he understood and exited the elevator when it stopped. An inherently melodramatic leader, Aaron then told the company’s HR head that he was considering filing an age discrimination lawsuit because the person selected for the job was seven years younger than he. He continued in his negative mind-set in working for his new boss and, not surprisingly, was eventually terminated, suffering two losses as a result.

Karen Reflects

Karen was also passed over for a promotion. Though she hadn’t worked at her company for as long as Aaron, she too had her heart set on a promotion—a manager-of-managers position. More than that, her boss had promised it to her, assuming that she would reach a series of goals, which she in fact did. In her mind, Karen saw this as an opportunity to “separate myself from the managerial pack.” For three years, she had been traveling at least two days a week to achieve one of the goals her boss had established—improving customer relationships. Not only had she traveled extensively and put in long hours but she had told her coworkers and friends that she was going to receive this promotion.

One day, Karen’s boss called her into her office and broke the bad news: in a succession-planning review, one of the key, influential senior people in the company had problems with Karen getting the position; a confrontation several months before between the two of them had disappointed him, and he was blocking her promotion. Karen’s boss told her she was embarrassed by the senior executive’s political interference but that, for now, the decision could not be reversed. She reiterated that she felt Karen was doing a great job and that she would do everything in her power to promote her when another opportunity presented itself.

At first, Karen was as angry as Aaron. Unlike Aaron, however, she didn’t allow her anger to shape her reactions to her boss. During that initial conversation, she had a negative impulse to lash out reactively but was able to overcome it. Nodding her head instead, she admitted quietly that she was disappointed. Still, she was tempted to quit. Karen felt that her boss didn’t fight hard enough for her, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to work in a company where a top executive could roadblock her career because of one incident. For a few weeks, Karen struggled with the decision. She thought a lot about it and talked several times with a former supervisor who had recently retired from the company. Her mentor, who knew Karen’s boss well, assured her that her boss meant what she said, that she was as honest as she was politically astute, that she would work to get Karen the promotion she deserved, as long as it didn’t compromise her politically. Their discussions helped Karen recognize that one reason she didn’t receive the promotion was her political naiveté. For years, Karen had disdained office politics and had never made an effort to form relationships with senior executives. If she had, her mentor said, she might have been able to overcome the resistance of the executive who prevented her from getting the position.

Though Karen remained angry about being passed over, the anger gradually diminished, and she realized her greatest opportunity to obtain the promotion she desired was to stay with the company and culture she knew well, at least for another year. During this time, she decided to work hard at being more of a networker to establish greater support among senior executives and to channel her achievement drive into improving her relationship with the executive who blocked her promotion. Rather than avoid him, she sought opportunities to interact with him, including serving together on an HR project team. It took two years, but when a subsequent opening occurred, she was promoted to a manager-of-managers job in another division.

Aaron reacted; Karen reflected. Despite appearances to the contrary, business runs on emotion, and skilled leaders learn to channel their emotions productively, no matter how daunting the task. Under the threat of being passed over, stalled, or blocked, high achievers often want to take immediate action to affect the situation, and that action is often negative. If you’re passed over or lose your job, your immediate response will be negative. You’re likely to beat someone else up or beat yourself up. In either case, you’re not in a mood to absorb the learning this passage contains. At worst, your anger will get you fired or cause you to burn bridges. At best, your ego will be deflated, and you will make more difficult the continual challenge of leadership—to develop self-confidence and astute observations about situations and people.

Conversely, the reflection and conversation we recommend in all the passages will prove particularly useful here. This passage has ended more than one promising career we know of, for no reason other than an inability to manage emotions and impulses. Some people never recover from being fired or being passed over, even if they eventually do secure other jobs and promotions. Psychologically, they remain mired in the anger, bitterness, and self-flagellation that is common to this passage. We regularly encounter executives who are fueled by hostile urges developed years ago in their treatment by another executive or company. Therefore, take the time to analyze the adverse event that took place and articulate your feelings and concerns about it. We’ll look at different ways that you can do so, but first we need to understand the dangerous points of this passage and how they destroy careers.