Dr. Todd Dewett | Founding member, HRExaminer Editorial Advisory Board

I share these ideas because promotion is fundamentally about moving forward into an unknown place.  People don’t know what it’s like to lead until they get there.  Too often, however, professionals overestimate how well they know this new place, thus they engage the stages of promotion with surprise and elevated stress.  Good news:  if you know what’s coming, it doesn’t have to hurt!

Stage 1:  dreaming.  Before the next big promotion, long before you have signaled your intensions and applied, you dream.  You idealize the promotion.  You focus on the joy of being rewarded, the feeling of higher status and authority, and the glee of higher pay.  You rely on simple uninformed notions of what it means to be a leader.  In short, you see in your future exactly what you need to see in order to maintain the feeling that you can do anything.

Stage 2:  doubt.  You have applied for the promotion.  Others know what you have done.  You begin to feel eyes watching you in larger numbers than ever before.  You start rethinking your logic.  You begin to question your timing and your skills.  You work hard to maintain a belief that you have made the right decision, in the face of an odd and unexpected challenge to your self-confidence.

Stage 3:  the honeymoon.  You got it!  You have been rewarded with the promotion!  During your honeymoon month, self-doubt evaporates.  You are overtaken with elation.  People keep telling you “congratulations.”  You have a new office, title, and salary.  Even the office jerks seem to give you a pass.  A glorious feeling of success and invulnerability defines you.  It’s beautiful.  Enjoy it.  It doesn’t last.

Stage 4:  paranoia.  After the honeymoon, you begin to see your new reality more clearly.  Many of the folks who were your buddies now look at you differently, some with suspicion.  You feel abandoned.  Sadly, nobody has given you a playbook for your new role.  A sense of being overwhelmed sets in.  Then you realize that not everyone wants you to succeed.  For the first time, you are forced to think deeply about politics at work.  You feel a sense of dread, wondering whom you can trust.

Stage 5:  delusions of grandeur.  Assuming you did not quit or get fired while battling the paranoia, you get a grip on your new reality, convince yourself you can do this, and begin plotting your grand success.  You remember why you accepted the role in the first place.  This is when you learn to read politics more clearly and unemotionally, you begin to build stronger coalitions, you learn to rally your team, and you begin espousing serious long-term improvement goals.  You achieve your first small win and the emotional swing from paranoia and dread to a passionate belief in positive change is complete.

Stage 6:  regret.  While plotting to change the world, you fully realize the pros and cons of being a leader.  You now understand that the challenges are bigger than you realized.  The hours are very long.  The constraints are now apparent.  You know what the system can and can’t do.  You see clearly the abilities and limitations of you colleagues on the leadership team.  You comprehend both the rewarding nature of small wins, and the seemingly impossible reality of making large-scale change.  You feel respected, but you often feel alone while facing difficult odds.

Stage 7:  the choice.  You know that you must make a choice about what you intend to do moving forward.  Your initial learning curve after promotion lasted a few months, maybe one year.  Now, with much more clarity, you must own your situation and make a choice.  You can quit (get out of the current role), acquiesce (stay in the role and become an ineffective steward of the status quo), or strive to make real change (stay in the role and continue taking risks, fight the good fight – to heck with the odds).

Every leader faces this choice.  It is unavoidable.  There is no correct answer, only an answer that is best for you.

Leadership is vitally important and can be among the most fulfilling endeavors in life.  It is also different and more difficult than most understand.  That’s true for the first promotion and each subsequent promotion you accept.  Before seeking to join the ranks of leadership, spend time seriously examining your values.  What is it you desire?  How many hours is enough?  How much status do you need?  How much do you value leisure and family time?  How much is enough money?

Please don’t hear me wrong.  Though leading others is tough, I believe there is more upside than downside.  It is a noble endeavor.  The challenges noted above are simply the price you must pay for the status, pay, and the opportunity to help improve your employees’ lives and your company’s competitiveness.  It’s up to you.  Is it worth it?

As a lawyer, I deal with weasels and sociopaths a lot. Weasels and sociopaths love power. And money.

There is a fine line between a weasel and a sociopath. All sociopaths are weasels, but weasels are usually just thoughtless, self-absorbed jerks who spend too much time staring at their own colons.

Sociopaths are different.

Sociopaths do not care about the consequences of their own actions, and will do anything to get their way. About 4% of the population are sociopaths.

When I first read The Sociopath Next Door, I struggled to believe that there could be a human being without a conscience. But then I started to realize that the legal system is full of them. So is the C-Suite (which should really be called the C-section).

Signs of a Sociopath:

1. No Empathy – they think that it’s funny when someone is hurt or harmed by others.
2. Lies – they lie about everything, defend their lies, and don’t care when they are busted.
3. Cheating and Stealing – the rules do not apply to them. But they are the first ones to try to enforce them against you. They will take your stuff, your ideas, credit for your work, and then lie about it all with convincing certitude.
4. Charm- sociopaths are enchanting and beguiling. They are adept at figuring out what you want to hear and telling you that. They adapt easily to new people and situations, and are shape-shifters. There’s nothing underneath, so it’s easy for them to take on new personas.
5. Risks- since sociopaths don’t care about the consequences of their actions, they take risks other people wouldn’t. They require a lot of stimulation and are always in the middle of whatever is happening.
6. Drugs and Alcohol- there is a high correlation between sociopaths and substance abuse. Experts believe it’s partly related to their need for stimulation, and partly because there are no checks on their own behaviors.

What to Do:

First: Believe it. Sociopaths exist, and you are probably dealing with one. It’s okay to label a person a sociopath or psychopath. Monsters with names are easier to manage intellectually and emotionally. You will probably blame yourself for not catching the situation earlier, or not preventing what happened. Yet, there was virtually nothing you could have done before you realized you were dealing with a sociopath. We simply don’t expect people to be that way, or to act without concern for what happens. And that is exactly why so many sociopaths get away with it.

Second: Trust your gut. There are people who make the hairs on the back of my neck rise, even though they seem charming, generous, and caring. I trust my instincts rather than my initial observations. Then I watch closely for lies, for words that don’t match actions, and for excuses for broken promises. Everyone screws up sometimes. Sociopaths screw up often, and always have the best reason why it’s not their fault.

Third: Get the person out of your office, out of your home, and out of your life. Do not buy their stories, lies, pleas for sympathy, promises to change, or anything else they say. If you need to, go yourself. Get as far away as you can. Sociopaths who have been caught can be ruthless and vindictive. They also love to look good and will always lie to make themselves the hero and everyone else the villain. The good news is that they also lose interest fast and are eager to find the next opportunity/victim/hostage. So if you can let go, they will move on quickly.

Further Reading

The Sociopath Next Door by Dr. Martha Stout (2006).

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak (2007)

HRExaminer Radio is a weekly show devoted to Recruiting and Recruiting Technology airing live on Friday’s at 11AM Pacific

HRExaminer Radio

Episode: 23
Air Date: June 14, 2013
Guest: Hank Stringer

Hank Stringer, CEO of Stringer Executive Search a subsidiary of Novotus has 30 years of experience as a successful high-tech recruiter, entrepreneur, and recruitment technology innovator.

Forecasting a talent shortage in 1994, Stringer founded Hire.com, the first ASP business model, utilizing the Internet to scale and automate interactive recruiting relationships and processes. In 2005 Stringer co-authored “Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business” with good friend and past Executive VP of HR for Electronic Arts, Rusty Rueff.

Hank has published numerous articles on recruitment and talent management in the workplace and is an accomplished and recognized speaker on recruitment issues. He has presented at events in Moscow, Norway, England, New Zealand, Australia, and Malaysia and throughout the United States.

Today Hank also leads a team developing confidential niche talent networks at www.strictlytalent.com

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HRExaminer Weekly Edition v4.23 June 14, 2013

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Oldie but Goodie If we’re looking for breakthroughs, we need to look outside the system. Don’t expect the usual suspects to deliver them. Read Now »

Why Read the HRExaminer? Seven and a half years ago we dissected the idea of employment branding. At that time, no one else was. We get clearer on the concept with each passing day. But, you could have started thinking about it way before everyone else. Read Now »

Events and More

• HRExaminer Radio : Industry News and Commentary with guests. Fridays at 11am pacific (2pm EDT):
  • Today’s Show June 14, 2013: Hank Stringer
• SHRM National (Chicago, June 17 - 19) Panels in the bloggers lounge
• iRecruit Expo (Amsterdam, June 20-21) The premier European Recruiting event. Sumser session on day two
• Social Recruiting Strategies Conference (Chicago, July 23-25) Sumser Keynote
• The HR Technology Conference (Las Vegas, Oct. 7-9, 2013) The HR Tech Industry’s town hall with Bill Kutik and cohost Steve Boese
• HRTech Europe (Amsterdam, Oct 24-25)

Here’s an article from January, 2006. That’s seven and a half years ago. At that point, we were deeply dissecting the idea of employment branding. No one else was. The idea of employment branding began to gain real traction in the past five years. We get clearer on the concept with each passing day. But, you could have started thinking about it way before everyone else. – John Sumser

Yesterday, we said “Employment Branding is the craft of being so completely organized that you are ready with the right message for the right person when she comes along.” Let’s take that a bit further today.

A brand is a relationship.

Brands only matter to the people who care about them. Mention the brand name outside of the circle of people who have the relationship and you will receive shoulder shrugs. Mention it inside the circle and you can spark a conversation full of passion and opinion.

The only brands that matter are the ones that people care about.

The theory and development of branding has been reserved, historically, for companies that could afford large broadcast media campaigns. The best examples of brand marketing are consumer product companies, from automobiles to popular music to varieties of American Cheese. The term brand is used to cover a wide range of circumstances from name recognition to deep affinity.

The notion of a brand has been extended to cover some surprising things. FastCompany, the periodical manifesto for those who want to change organizations from within, extends the concept as a metaphor for personal marketing. Peppers and Rogers, the authors of popular books on database and relationship marketing, move the concept to tightly grouped members of a database.

It is useful to think about branding as an early stage technology.

Purely a 20th Century invention, branding, like many first generation technologies, began in organizations that could afford clumsy and inefficient approaches because of their sheer size. For the past 70 years, branding has been a game of extensive spending to attract large numbers of people to a single product or company.

Today, however, the tools needed to build very clear, very small niche oriented brands are readily available.

Like much of marketing, the tools are now available from the desktop. This “downward evolution” of marketing, covered in our earlier work, creates both expanded opportunity and expanded responsibility at the department and operating unit level. The labor shortage creates a new requirement for the development of Relationships between Employers and demographically defined pools of candidates. This process, which is an outgrowth of the emerging changes in the basic concept of management are nothing less than a redefinition of the boundaries of the organization.

The combination of need and trend is fortuitous. As the generational labor shortage unfolds its consequences, the competition for employees must become increasingly precise. Over the next several years, we will continue to witness a series of increasingly successful branding exercises that focus clearly on the branding of subcomponents of the organization.

What makes Company X the employer of choice for Unix professionals is unlikely to be the dynamic that attracts candidates in accounting. A brand, as it is commonly understood is a good place to start. But, the focus on being a generic “employer of choice” is an inadequate vision for effective long term labor supply management.

If we’re looking for breakthroughs, we need to look outside the system. Don’t expect the usual suspects to deliver them.

I’ve been reading stuff from Bob Lefsetz for years. Overflowing with content, always opinionated and usually on to something, Lefsetz is the last patriot in the land of thre music business. His writing focuses on the disruption and transformation in the sector that brought us jet-setting rock stars but now delivers bespoke music for small, intimate audiences.

Lefsetz, more than any other writer, chronicles the power of individuals to make a difference. Whether it’s the latest one hit wonder or a cruise through music history, he illuminates the power of vision and authenticity (both in and by his writing). While the music industry continues to pan its streams in the hunt for gold veins, Bob sermonizes about the importance of playing for the sake of playing. He’s the  representative for the notion that fame is fleeting but quality work lasts forever.

Bob has fits (and sends them to you in his voluminous emails) when he sees someone with no talent being driven by the hunger for fame. They always try to find shortcuts; they think they’re entitle to your time based on their ambition; they’re sloppy and undistinguished.

When Bob finds something good, you’re the first to know about it. As a music fan I relish the people he’s turned me on to. Ever since radio died and the kids left home, I’ve been at a loss for finding new things to listen to. Lefsetz fllls the gap.

He’s got opinions and no shortage of them. When he’s at his best, he sizzles with focus. When he’s at his worst, he moralizes about the irrelevant.

He’s on way more than he’s off.

People who make a difference are never all sugar and light. Like I do with Lefsetz, you take the good with the bad, mostly because the good is so amazingly good.

We should hold ourselves to such high standards. Rather than a passing grade in all subjects, excel in some and fail at the others. That’s what makes the difference.

Here’s the conclusion of Bob’s most recent piece about the kinds of people who make a real difference.

“In other words, one man or woman can make a difference.

But these people who do make a difference, they listen only to themselves, they categorically can’t work for someone else, unless that person gives free reign, which is incredibly rare.

If we’re looking for breakthroughs, we need to look outside the system. Don’t expect the usual suspects to deliver them. And sure, many obtuse ideas will fail, but enough will succeed to change the paradigm.

20th Century Fox was not a believer in “Star Wars”, I saw the trailer multiple times and the audience laughed, it was so cheesy. Not only did “Star Wars” become the biggest grossing movie of all time, it spawned sequels and imitations and created the merchandising paradigm.

Capitol refused to release the first Beatles album.

And Apple fired Steve Jobs. Because he just couldn’t get along, he was a troublemaker.

Now ultimately these people needed help to succeed. But they didn’t share power, they were dictators, it went down their way, their vision was unsullied.

There’s no safety net when you’re trawling the far reaches of creativity. But that’s where the next big thing is gonna come from.”