Fantasizing and Encountering the New Organizational Leader

Executive departures are on the increase in many organizations. Executive departures, transitions, and new orders raise rich fantasies in individual experience, creating the possibility for legendary folklore and stories. Fantasies provide us -- more or less – with coherent images of possibilities or events that are unrestricted by reality. In organizations, fantasies take shape in the normal and everyday dreamtime of employees -- daydreaming. Understanding the dynamics raised by fantasies may facilitate new executive entry into an organization, enabling organizational agenda-setting in shorter periods than through the conventional use of focus and other sensing groups.Executive transitions typically occur for three reasons: opportunity, performance, or retirement. Unique daydreams accompany each circumstance but are often cast in hope and fear. Imagine Jim, a close confidante of senior executive Todd. Jim has known for weeks that something was up for his Todd. Stories were abuzz –a retirement, a resignation? Jim’s questions raise issues related to status and to possibilities. As fantasies, these hopes and concerns typically remain in the private realm. Discomfort often accompanies shared daydreams, as revealed fantasies shed light on organizational realities.Opportunities to deepen organizational knowledge increase when hopes and concerns about the new leader are given a forum for expression. In addition, depending on feedback sources, attention and focus on the daydreaming aspects of organizational experience promote further opportunities to learn, thereby reducing time to creating, developing, sustaining, or transforming an organizational agenda. Further, stories arising from daydreams humanize the leader.Regardless of the typical or unique circumstances associated with executive departure, fantasies, in my experience of observing transitions, are understood in three ways. First, there are fantasies that allow or facilitate the process of letting go. Next, there are fantasies that are projections of hope to the leader and to the organization. Finally, there is the leader's impact on the new organization and the organization's impact on the new leader. Most in an organization will encounter the beginnings of a new order, solely influenced by the new executive, over time. Insight and perception into these areas may reveal both the ground and shadow of the new organizational leader and an organization's future.

Letting-Go Daydreams

At senior levels in organizations, individuals and the senior-most executive are frequently engaged in a role negotiation relative to status. As organizations have flattened, roles on executive teams have also shifted, creating complex relationships involving rank, resources, control, and judgment. Some concerns that arise as one executive departs and the other on-boards include desires to let go of the past and everything associated with the departing executive. These unique opportunities in organizational life are rich for organization development and growth.Among typical wishes for new executives are: 1) an approach to let go of projects that few supported, excluding the departing executive, 2) to acknowledge failures and shortcomings that were previously ignored or overlooked, and 3) to gain protection from a previous leader or organizational toxins. Being unique to a particular organizational landscape, Daydreams have a particular meaning within both narrow and broader organizational contexts (e.g., what does it mean for our team and what does it mean for the larger organization). Careful attention to unvoiced wishes will develop the perspective of the new executive.I recall my reaction of curiosity to an executive departure. Rather than argue about the appropriateness of my approach, I simply share the story. A web announcement indicated that so-and-so was leaving the company for reasons that were not completely clear. For example, statements such as “decided to pursue other opportunities” or “for professional reasons” were often well understood, despite vague phrasing, and were missing from the announcement. It seemed that it was an unfortunate organizational exit, but the announcement phrasing increased my curiosity. Approaching my colleague, a top executive in the company, I said, “What’s up with so-and-so’s departure?” The executive told me everything I needed to know and nothing, in particular, thereby fueling and shaping my experiences of the organization, including those of the departed executive. Some might chalk all of this up to office politics or worse, but it is in these situations that we often come to deepen insight into organizational values and success criteria. An individual or team could profit from this example by exploring unspoken criteria for organizational career success. Further, these insights may lead to innovation in the usual script of departure and arrival announcements.

Hope and Possibility

Just as organizational opportunities are expressed through letting-go daydreams, new leaders, and those working on the successful transition of the new leader, can benefit from understanding the hopes projected onto the new leader and to the organization. In most transitions, people are concerned about reporting relationships. Changes will vary by the executive and organizational style -- some complete, decisive and immediate, while others take shape over “the first 100 days,” or still others, longer. Regardless of pace, the effects of shifts (or no shift) in power structures, expressed through reporting changes and relationships, create or reinforce new executive and organizational dynamics. The impact is real and shapes individual and organizational behavior.Some closely affected by the executive departure and loss, consider options. Complex sets of factors influence options. Some will be unable to act on their choices, given the investments and rewards deposited and gained from organizational life. Not only does the relationship to the new senior-most executive raise career concerns, but it will also affect working style and relationship. Those accustomed to familiar patterns of interacting with the former executive must now shift. Without the right coaching and support, these transitions are both challenging and daunting.Reflective leaders consider transition as an opportunity to work in new ways. The change in leadership can provide new avenues for growth, providing for growth and development. Likewise, the new senior-most leader can use the transition as a developmental turn, drawing on his or her experience and more actively engaging in the process of adaptive learning. Executive reporting relationships, regardless of how well they are constructed, suffer some consequence of risk. For executives, the concept of risk is familiar, but both context and environmental constraints and demands affect career decisions that go alongside many executive transitions.The insight gained through this experience may be profoundly transformational. The events and circumstances that created a leadership change provide further opportunities for growth through a transition. In organizations where there is support for development – extending beyond the conventional limits of ranking, planning, and rotations -- the individual executive may create a larger world for him or herself and his or her followers.

Encountering the New Order

As the new leader and those responsible for his or her successful transition create initiation activities (meet and greets, one-to-few roundtables), other executives are needed to make sense of the new order, and that sense-making will always be based on limited information, despite the level of familiarity one has with the new senior leader. In addition, as others are making sense of the transition, the executive must recognize that he or she is also in a period of transition, affected by the many emotions better understood today than yesterday, including anger, denial, and relief. The consequences of additions, changes, and departures may be evident in the early hours or days following an executive transition, and others will linger. An appreciation for transition provides a new executive with a means to navigate and to communicate a new order. Despite the awkwardness that is, at times, associated with executive transition, the effect of subordinate-executive behavior sends powerful messages to others about what to expect and what is expected.For the new leader, he or she and those supporting transition efforts should seek to create opportunities for feedback that are not typical. While there is enormous value in those open-ended conversations, innovation in executive transition dialogues can accelerate the time to executive success. With new approaches, employees and others have additional opportunities to make meaning of their careers and organizations and to deliver on organizational purpose. The topic of transition is increasingly important as it affects employee engagement and firm performance. Understanding the role of organizational daydreams in supporting executive transition may provide new ways of accelerating successful organizational outcomes.