Lance Tanaka - Stories from the Top: The 8 Core Leadership Challenges and How the Best Executives Overcame Them

Copyright 2019

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-1-54397-448-5 (print)
ISBN 978-1-54397-449-2 (eBook)

Introduction

Z hang Lu, a managing director of a Fortune 50 company stared out the window at the city of Shanghai with a blank expression on his face. After an almost remorseful sigh, he said, Lance, Im just worn out. My health is not so good, and I cant seem to get my energy levels up from this low point.

Then he went on to give me a litany of reasons: I cant get my head above water. The stress of not feeling in control of my schedulewhich seems to be under the control of clients, stakeholders, family and on and onis a constant. With our rapidly changing business, were struggling to change our employees mindsets to be more empowered and innovative.

Our employee turnover is fine, but whats frustrating is that were losing some of our best people to the competition. People I personally brought into the business. Its such a headache to get the cooperation from my cross-functional heads due to their different agendas.

On top of that, I cant get my country managers to tell me what is really going on in their markets until its almost too late. But more than anything, I just dont feel the passion for the business I once had.

My guess is Lus situation sounds familiar. As a consultant, I hear these kinds of frustrations all the time .

And it breaks my heart, because while its true that there is no easy solution, its also true that there is a solution. You dont have to feel trapped and hopeless in your career.

I know because Ive been there. Ive felt that stress, that feeling that the problems are so big and systemic that you cant see the end of them, that feeling that youre doing all this for a family you hardly ever see anymore.

And I found a way to take back control of my life. Ill tell you some of that story in the following pages as I share how I used the principles Im going to share with you to focus on what is really important and become the kind of leaderand personI wanted to be.

The Global Workplace Makes Leadership Harderand More ImportantThan Ever

I have logged over 16,000 hours of coaching executives in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, the U.S., and Europe, and let me first acknowledge that doing business in a global, digitally connected economy does bring a host of stressors to the workplace that are different than what leaders in similar positions had to deal with 20 or 30 years ago.

That said, in all my time I have learned that, regardless of industry, country, or position, leaders face the same challenges regarding their effectiveness in a global environment.

My M.O.: Simplicity and Focus Deliver Impact

I will share these challenges in short order, but first I have a confession to make. I certainly dont possess detailed knowledge or experience in each of the industries of the executives I coach. I owe my success not to being the smartest guy in the room but to having found a very effective system for approaching problems.

In brief, I tend to look at simple solutions to sometimes complex issues. Instead of being comprehensive, I prefer to be focused . This is what my clients want from me: focused, practical, yet impactful ideas.

I believe Asia Executive Resources success in the leadership development business is in large part due to our ability to have a real impact on leaders. Its our core DNA. Over the years, weve learned to achieve impact by taking the research, information, and methodologies out there and boiling it down to foundational techniques that are practical, focused, and immediately applicable to your career and life.

The Eight Challenges of the Global Executive

To that end, in this book I want to simplify the landscape of global leadership challenges by identifying the eight common obstacles that are behind all the other problems. They may not be what you expect, but at the same time they will probably resonate with you.

1. Find your purpose and become an authentic leader. Move from success to significance by being more of who you were designed to be.
2. Get a life and take control of your career. Focus on the most important things.
3. Develop influence rather than authority. Motivate people to want to follow you.
4. Prove that you can teach an old dog new tricks . Break your old, unproductive habits and create new ones at any age.
5. Attract, develop, and retain your best people.
6. Forge a change in mindsets throughout an organization.
7. Cultivate your executive presence . Get the message right so you can connect with and engage your audience.
8. Engage the broader culture. Become an effective global leader .

The Eleven Foundational Principles to Meet Your Leadership Challenges

Ive coached executives for 18 years, and before that I had some 20 years of leading organizations, and Im here to say that these challenges can be overcome. In fact, in my experience the most effective leaders are those able to live by certain foundational principles that help them address the eight areas of challenge:

1. Focus
2. Leverage Your Strengths and Passions
3. Know the difference between North and True North
4. Take small steps
5. Realize that logic is not enough
6. Focus on them
7. Build win-win relationships
8. Understand how motivation is the foundation for change
9. Be clear
10. Use the MBTAM framework
11. Leverage what performers want

Two Ways to Use This Book

This book is structured to walk you through an understanding of the concepts of both the challenges and the principles to overcome them as well as to show you, through real-life stories of global executives, what those challenges and principles look like in the lives of leaders. If this is your first time reading this book, I recommend you read it straight through like you would any other book.

You will notice that within any given chapter I will often point you to other places in this book. This is because many of these concepts intersect with one another. If its your first read, dont worry about these too much; these are for your reference later.

If you are familiar with the ideas in this book, you can use it more like a reference manual. When you face one of the eight leadership challenges, go to that chapter and read the supporting principles to address that challenge.

In Part One, I tell stories from the top that illustrate the eleven foundational principles. I present each principle under three headings:

• WHAT: A description of the principle
• WHY: The research that supports it
• HOW: Concrete and practical ways to apply the principle

In Part Two, I explain the eight common challenges faced by leaders as demonstrated with even more stories from the top.

Although we work with executives from all over the globe, the majority are Chinese and most are located in the PRC.

Note: Some company names have been withheld and most personal names have been fictionalized to respect confidentiality, the bedrock of executive coaching. These best-of-the-best companies are quite protective of how they are addressing their talent development programs and initiatives.

Additional note: I cant help myself from shameless self-promotion. While this book aims to help you meet these challenges on your own, I will from time to time mention how we can assist you.

I look forward to helping you move from success to significance in being the leader you were designed to be.