How to step up strategically

Unbounded self-confidence, technical excellence and a strong operational prowess are characteristics that can help high potential employees rise to the echelons of the Senior Management Team.  From this vantage, Senior Managers have the opportunity to use their skills to leverage greater levels of influence and deliver a more immediate impact at a strategic level.  But, with such talent reaching the senior team why is it that Executive failure rates can rocket to as much as 75%?  It appears that the skills that have so loyally served Senior Managers in the past are betraying them at the next level.  So what is happening?

In some respects Senior Managers can be casualties of their own success. Their skills have been rubber stamped, verified and prestigiously rewarded.  It’s perhaps human nature for the Senior Manager to feel like they have ‘arrived',and at this juncture they may even start believing in their own grandiose. This degree of positive reinforcement has the power to habitualise behaviours which are effective in many well-trodden situations but may simply not work in new and unfamiliar territory.