Networking is the key for CEOs' success in difficult times!

02/02/2012

Who do you turn to when the going gets rough?  Your family?  Your mates?  What if you’re the CEO of a large organisation?   In a recent study of CEO behaviour, it turns out that the answer is – ‘your mates’.    

It's understandable that people from similar circumstances may provide each other valuable support, through advice, validation or needed perspective.    But what impels busy, driven people to offer it?

Researchers Michael McDonald and James Westphal took an observation from social identity theory: we like to help other members of a group we identify with.    Their study used surveys year-on-year to investigate CEO personal circumstances, their attitudes towards identity, and a range of behaviours – both towards other CEOs and within their organisation.  

As predicted, participants who identified themselves as part of a leadership group were more likely to then offer their fellows support:    if their identification grew by a single standard deviation, this would lead them to provide social support on an extra eight occasions.

Their findings point to the importance of networking and maintaining good social contacts within and outside the workplace to ensure that support is available when needed. 

The skills needed to do this us squarely within the domain of Emotional Intelligence and enhancing skills and performance in this area is a necessary precursor of accessing these support that such groups can provide.

If you’re a consultant it may sometimes be the case that you cannot provide direct support or advice to some of your executive level clients.  What you can do however is to help them develop the skills to access that help for themselves. 

The EBW can help to pinpoint the areas that need development and provide a context and set of objectives for their achievement.

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Michael L. McDonald, & James D. Westphal (2011). My Brother's Keeper? CEO Identification with the Corporate Elite, Social Support Among CEOs, and Leader Effectiveness Academy of Management Journal, 54 (4), 661-693

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