Two Leadership Lessons from Succession
Because I was so fired up about the Succession finale, this week’s post is a small deviation from the series on strategic leadership. Obviously, if you want to watch the series finale but haven’t already, skip this.
Then again, it’s been a whole week–what are you waiting for???
Recently, I was talking with a prospective client about what he wanted to achieve with coaching. When he mentioned that part of his goal was to be ready for senior leadership, the conversation shifted. I told him, “In that case, you should know that the standard 360-degree feedback tools might tell you about leadership capabilities generally, but those aren’t the traits that will determine whether or not you eventually become the CEO.”
That statement was channeling one of my business school professors, Jeffrey Pfeffer, whose main message on the first day of class was that “being a good leader” and “accumulating power” aren’t always the same thing.
Pfeffer wrote in his book Power that “the teaching on leadership is filled with prescriptions about following an inner compass, being truthful, letting inner feelings show, being modest and self-effacing, not behaving in a bullying or abusive way—in short, prescriptions about how people wish the world and the powerful behaved. There is no doubt that the world would be a much better, more humane place if people were always authentic, modest, truthful, and consistently concerned for the welfare of others instead of pursuing their own aims. But that world doesn’t exist.”
And that brings me to Succession. The fact that all of the characters are horrible human beings has little to do with their ability to run the business. One might even argue that Logan Roy, the patriarch, could only build such an empire because he was so practiced in the dark arts of power.
And in the end, the “winner” of the succession battle wasn’t the person who was most inspiring or who had the best vision for the company. It was the person, Tom, who was most willing to subordinate himself to those above and to be a “pain sponge.” When asked to pitch himself for the CEO role, Tom’s answer was, “As a manager, I’m simple. I squeeze the costs, and juice the revenue, [and] follow the boss.”
We might not admire people like that, but they get ahead!
The frayed family relationships in Succession also made me think of Pfeffer’s guidance on the effort it takes to get to the top. He wrote, “Building and maintaining power requires time and effort, there are no two ways about it. Time spent on your quest for power and status is time that you cannot spend on other things, such as hobbies or personal relationships and families.”
In the book Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy expressed this same sentiment when giving advice to his young (male) colleagues. “If you prefer to spend all your spare time growing roses or playing with your children, I like you better, but do not complain that you are not being promoted fast enough.”
That was published in 1963, but former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty expressed the same thing in her 2023 book Good Power. Despite claiming near the end of the book that a robust work life and family are not mutually exclusive, Rometty nonetheless credits her professional success to a tremendous work ethic—“I was not exercising, and I probably needed more sleep, less travel, and more fun”—and to having a spouse who “never resented the time and dedication my career required.”
In fact, Rometty’s agreement with her spouse was that it was fine to live in different cities, with a commitment to go no longer than 14 days without seeing each other. That formula seems to have worked for her, but it’s definitely not without tradeoffs.
The lesson: There’s no easy path to the top!