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Organizations tend to notice people who project assertiveness. Employees who confidently put themselves forward, speak often and openly about their ambitions, and appear eager to take charge are more likely to be identified as leadership material. Their desire for the role is easily interpreted as evidence that they are ready for it. Yet being eager to lead is not the same as being ready to lead.
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When my coaching client, Chris* became chief legal counsel at a financial services firm, he didn’t anticipate how fast the workload would escalate. Within his first year, the company closed three major acquisitions back-to-back, producing an avalanche of contract reviews, compliance filings, and regulatory matters. Every time Chris tried to hand something off, his team would say, “we’re doing our best, but we’re at capacity.” He understood, but since the work still had to get done, Chris absorbed it himself. Working nights and weekends to keep up soon compromised Chris’s ability to drive the very high-level strategy he’d been tapped to lead.