How senior leaders develop – or derail

What leaders need to learn and unlearn to successfully transition to senior and executive roles.

In this new article published by Monash Business School, Dr Martin Boult emphasises how making the successful transition to senior leadership requires developing new approaches and capabilities. Importantly, it also involves addressing any existing problem behaviours “that can potentially derail your leadership career”.

As you ascend the leadership ladder, your career experience, business knowledge and technical expertise all play a key role in helping you rise to mid-tier management. But they don’t prepare you to climb that next rung to the senior ranks, leading a business function, taking on an executive role or becoming CEO.

In the words of Monash expert Dr Martin Boult, “being a manager is not necessarily going to be enough to know how to be effective as a senior leader”. Presenting a leadership masterclass for Monash alumni, Dr Boult emphasised how making the successful transition to senior leadership required developing new approaches and capabilities. Importantly, it also involves addressing any existing problem behaviours “that can potentially derail your leadership career”.

Dr Boult explained how these “derailers” were first formally studied by researchers at the US Center for Creative Leadership in the 1980s. After tracking the career progress of potential leaders over time, what they discovered amongst those who ‘derailed’ “was a common set of behaviours that either stalled their career or held them back from being effective”.

The five common factors were:

• Difficulty developing good working relationships: This included behaviours that left people feeling undervalued or demeaned. “Some of the behaviours that leaders were demonstrating … could even be quite bullying or harassment-type behaviours; easy to anger, very impatient,” Dr Boult said.

• Difficulty building and leading a team: “Many leaders find they might be capable of building or leading early-level teams, but as they got to more senior levels, it became a challenge for them.”

• Resistance to learning from mistakes and adapting to change: “Managers who struggle to adapt to working in a senior management culture, or who demonstrate they are not open to feedback and learning from their mistakes, are unable to adjust their approach when faced with new challenges and change.”

• Failing to meet business objectives: “Whilst they may have been effective in achieving outcomes early in their career, they struggle to achieve them later.”

• Lacking understanding and depth outside their own function: This becomes problematic when leaders with very deep knowledge and expertise in their own field struggle to think across the entirety of an organisation’s elements and functions.

Dr Boult said the average gleaned from multiple studies was that 50 per cent of managers failed in senior leadership roles because of these derailment behaviours. Critically though, he stressed that people were not “stuck” with them; if leaders were motivated to seek insights and understanding, then they could be addressed and improved.

Giving a preview of the upcoming Monash Leadership Development program, Dr Boult explained how course attendees uncover these sorts of insights and, critically, build their self-awareness through tools such as ‘360-degree’ feedback assessments, validated personality assessments and mapping their leadership journeys.

Leadership behaviours that stand the test of time

Outlining the sorts of leadership qualities that the course explores in-depth, Dr Boult named four “timeless” leadership capabilities that successful senior leaders have long demonstrated.

“And they are just as relevant today as they have been in the past,” he said.

1. Self-knowledge and leading yourself

What does this look like in practice?

• Consistently seeking and taking on honest feedback to update how others experience your leadership

• Actively identifying and managing the behaviours most likely to derail you from being effective – especially under pressure

• Demonstrating that your stated values match up with your actions – particularly when this is challenging or uncomfortable.

2. Building trust based on your ethics and character

This looks like:

• Consistently demonstrating integrity in all settings (“Private and public, through actions not just words,” Dr Boult added)

• Making your reasons for decisions transparent and taking responsibility for the consequences (“And this involves making decisions even when it involves personal or commercial costs.”)

• Addressing ethical failures, even when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular to do so.

3. Leading through uncertainty

Senior leaders succeed in this area by:

• Providing a clear, coherent direction for followers when certainty is impossible, honestly communicating what’s known and unknown while sustaining hope

• Distinguishing and responding to ‘adaptive’ challenges that require people and the organisational system to change to address a challenge or make an improvement  (as opposed to relying on quick-to-solve technical challenges that are easy to identify)

• Revising their position and decisions when new evidence warrants it, without losing the respect and confidence of their followers.

4 . Leading other leaders and shaping a sustainable culture

You demonstrate this capability by:

• Prioritising the development of other leaders and improving the performance of the team over your own individual contribution (“That’s quite a big mindset shift for most leaders to make,” Dr Boult noted, “Because in the early parts of our career we’re very much focussed on ‘What do I need to do to improve?’”)

• Shaping culture through the daily behaviours you reward, recognise and challenge

• Influencing people across boundaries through trusted relationships, clear direction, psychological safety and fostering accountability – not positional authority

• Leaving your organisation stronger by developing the next generation of leaders (“An important role for senior leaders is to leave the group or the organisation in a better state, so it is able to survive beyond their tenure of leadership”).

Dr Boult concluded his presentation with a quote from renowned business advisor Ram Charan: “Every passage in leadership requires letting go of old skills and learning new ones.”

Adding a final note, he urged masterclass attendees to “think about what you would need to start to learn and unlearn in order to prepare yourself for those senior leadership roles that you may be aiming at”.

For businesses and leaders wanting to excel in senior leadership, contact Boult Executive Psychology at: mboult@boultpsychology.com

References: 

• Conger, J.A. (2024) Leveraging Leadership Development to Pre-Empt Leader Derailments. Behavioural Sciences, 14(12), 1122. 

• Day, D.V. & Antonakis, J (Eds.) (2012). The Nature of Leadership (2nd ed.) 

• McCall, M.W. & Lombardo, M.M. (1983), Off the Track: Why and How Successful Executives Get Derailed, Center for Creative Leadership 

• Heifetz, R.A & Linsky, M (2002), Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading