Today’s blog takes me back to one of my favorite sources of insight: real executives wrestling with very real leadership dilemmas, the kind that eventually become powerful leadership simulations.

I recently spoke with a senior executive about an up-and-coming leader in his organization.

This person was crushing his numbers. He was innovative, decisive, and charismatic.

He forged loyal followership. He moved fast. He broke things. He got results.

He was, in the executive’s words, a “bull in a China shop who went to President’s Club every year for great performance.”

And here was the problem:

“In every role he’s had, he’s essentially planned for and executed a coup. But he never sees himself as leading the coup. He always feels like he’s just adjacent to it. Like the organization is dysfunctional and he’s simply stepping in to fix it.”

That phrase stuck with me.

Coup-adjacent leadership.

Not openly rebellious. Not formally insubordinate. But constantly destabilizing the system in the name of results.

The executive’s question to me was simple and profound:

“How do we develop leaders who can recognize this pattern, and neutralize it, without killing innovation?”

That’s a serious leadership challenge.

Here are five lessons in business acumen and leadership created from understanding the dynamics of the “coup-adjacent” environment.

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The first quarter of 2024 is now in the books. From a value creation perspective, the S&P index has grown by about 10% and the Dow Jones Index by about 6%. This strong and steady growth has occurred in the face of continued volatility coming from socio-economic issues, inflation, the unemployment rate, weather conditions, and world population health factors.

One of the most important pieces of research Advantexe continually seeks is information gathered from our Training and Development clients to understand what skills they are looking to develop for the rest of the year and beyond.

Based on our continued conversations and surveys in Q1, 2024, the top three skills large, global organizations are seeking to develop are:

• Collaboration
• Business Acumen
• Leading a Culture of Innovation

What has been interesting to discover is the consistency of both the definition and focus on these specific skills they are seeking to solve. That hasn’t always been the case. For example, a year ago the most important skill companies were looking to develop was providing feedback as a form of coaching. What many found out was there is no one definite and easy definition or methodology for teaching how to give effective feedback. Here at Advantexe, we implemented several major Coaching & Feedback simulations, and they are all growing into the 2^nd and 3^rd year of implementation which means immersive, practice-based learning is one of the only ways to teach those skills.

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One of the realities of being a leader in 2021 and beyond is that direct reports and others that work with you on projects and processes don’t wake up every morning thinking to themselves that today is the day I am going to make myself more accountable.

In a recent virtual Fundamentals of Business Leadership simulation workshop there is a scenario where two of the central characters, David and Ellen are having a conflict over David’s lack of communications on a critical project and his unwillingness to take accountability for his mistakes and delays. Ellen is frustrated that the work David was supposed to have done wasn’t done (she’s the one who must tell the customer) and David is upset that he thinks Ellen is being too hard on him and that he thinks the client is being unreasonable by demanding the project be delivered on time.

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This time of year brings out all the pundits and so-called experts who espouse their insights and ideas in the form of blogs, articles, podcasts, and other assorted media, predicting the future and providing business leaders with prophesies to base their decision-making on during the coming year. Among the many things you will read and hear about are the painfully obvious including the continued emergence of artificial intelligence, the endless expansion of ecommerce, and of course the ever-present geopolitical issues that lead the news headlines every day, yet seem to have very little impact on the health of the global economy in 2017.

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