25

Reasons Why
Great Executive
Leaders
In-Transition
Fail to Land.

Your Leadership Partner


Why Great Executive Leaders,
In-Transition, Fail to Land.
The leader’s ego keeps
getting in the way
Let’s address the elephant in the room. It has
been our experience that the first and most
important challenge in Executive Landings, is
almost always the executive themselves, and
well deserved as well. Leaders work hard to
get to where they are, and finding themselves
on the hunt, something that they may not have
had to do for a long time throughout their
career is not easy on their psychology.
Nonetheless, this is something that most
leaders will need to learn to overcome.
Some of the fundamental pieces to this
include, potential loss of self-esteem, identity,
self-worth, and self-concept; depending on the
situation, it may also include some feelings of
embarrassment, shame, and “tarnished
image”. A feeling of loss of control or feeling
“out of control” while they have been always
used to making BIG decisions and having
MAJOR impact throughout their career.
Lack of resources &
infrastructure
Executive Leaders are not accustomed to
doing the day-to-day administrative tasks
themselves, and perhaps they may lack some
basic habits/skills for details and logistics;
organization of tasks, etc… In a lot of cases, we
have seen leaders being “technology
impaired” while they now have to think of
everything, as well as be burdened with time-
consuming planning and activities that used to
be handled by support personnel.
Sometimes this may paralyze much needed
actions that are required to move ahead with
getting things done. Unless the executive finds
their feet around this topic, or finds support in
this area, it may end up being a great paralytic
agent, and hinder the whole journey, or at
least delay it tremendously.
2
There are fewer seats at
the top
The simple fact is that at the top of the
pyramid there are less roles that are similar to
those that the executive may have been in. So
the search will naturally take longer, and the
executive’s frustration can be much greater,
adding to the executive’s stress levels. In
many cases this is not obvious to those who
have for so many years found flow in their
career transitions, by being moved seamlessly
from one role to the other.
Over-reliance on executive
headhunters
The average Executive Leader will transition
into a new role, through an Executive Search
Firm, about 15% of the times throughout their
career.
One of the major misconceptions that
executive leaders have about headhunters, is
that they will be focused on helping the leader
to find their next role, and advocating
incessantly on their behalf. This couldn’t be
further away from the truth. It would be a
great coincidence, if at the time that you as a
leader start looking for your next role, that
any particular headhunter will have a role
ready for you, and that you would fit hand in
glove into this role that they have open. The
reality is that the likelihood of this happening
is quite low.
While headhunters will be happy to place you,
their primary focus will be on filling the
assignment that they have currently open
with their clients. While some may help out by
making a couple of introductions on a casual
basis, the reality is that if they introduce you
to an organization without terms in place,
they might just end up shooting themselves in
the foot, for getting future retained work.
Why Great Executive Leaders, In-Transition, Fail to Land.

Maintaining that high-
level compensation
Being used to a high Compensation & Benefits
Package is especially difficult to maintain
moving forward, especially during tough
economic situations. Hiring someone at these
typical high-salary levels in any organization,
will most likely require a good number of
approvals, which can be derailed at any point
and can of course take a good amount of time.
Of course, senior leaders who have been used
to earning big, have most likely been used to
living big. There is often a high burn-rate, and
hence the pressure to get back into earning
“top dollar” is much greater.
In recent years, there has been a lot of push-
back on exorbitant packages for C-Suite
Executives, and one should expect to rethink
their approach to that conversation, when the
time comes.
There is more & tougher
competition at the top
You are not the only one trying to get that
coveted executive leader role. At any given
point, there may be an internal pool of
candidates fighting for it. There may also be a
bunch of headhunters looking to hire into it,
each with a number of candidates to present.
There may also be a substantial network of
executives that have a line to the board or the
ExCom that are being engaged for the
potential role.
Here you are trying to position yourself as the
most suitable candidate for the role, that every
other C-Suiter and their cousin is lobbying for.
Unless you have a very clear and focused
value proposition, a professional brand
identity, as well as strong relationships on the
inside, the chances of you landing that dream
“gig” are going to be under continuous
pressure.
3
Executive roles are filled
Internally first
Data from research tells us clearly that those
much coveted roles in larger organizations,
where succession planning has become part of
a robust internal development and growth
system, are more likely to be filled internally,
rather than being sourced through external
methods.
So, simply put, while one may think that they
may be looking at a substantial number of
potential employers that would be interested
in hiring someone of caliber, the question
often comes down to who has priority. If you
are not part of the internal pool, then you may
just be out of the pool completely.
Age as a factor in
sustainability & law
A lot of organizations today are looking for
younger, up and coming leaders, who can give
the organization a good long tenure of high
performance, energy and sustainability. Some
may therefore be aiming at hiring from a
younger bracket than yours, or sometimes
older, if they are looking for a more tenured
and experienced leader.
While in some countries age should not come
into the decision process, when you are
looking at an international assignment, you
might want to keep in mind, that asking how
old you are is not against the law in many
countries around the world.
In addition to the above, you should consider
the mandatory and / or legal retirement age
that is perhaps specific to your industry of
focus.
All these elements play a substantial role in
how executive leaders should be designing
their career transition program, so that
consideration is given to both the enablers as
well as the inhibitors to attaining that next
dream executive leadership “gig”.
Why Great Executive Leaders, In-Transition, Fail to Land.
 4

Heidi-Mai
Warren
Executive
Leadership
& Career
Transition
Coach

Your Leadership Partner


THE NETWORKING KEY
You are going about your
networking all wrong
Most open networkers are born that way and
they invest a substantial amount of time in
both their professional as well as their
personal life, because it’s an activity that gives
them energy. While some people, after a long
day at work, want to go home, lay down on a
comfortable couch and unwind, others get
energized by spending even more time in the
company of a wide group of people.
Connecting with everyone and anyone that
comes your way may be interesting at times,
especially as you go out enriching your
personal life. However, professional
networking needs to be mindful and
purposeful and requires a very well-designed
strategy that serves your professional
purposes, whether it is for growing your
business, or for growing your career.
Fear or dislike of
networking
Have you noticed that some people are just
natural born networkers and others will
simply avoid it like the plague. Well, this can
be identified in your personality profile.
Understanding that upfront and then adapting
the right networking strategy that works for
you, regardless of whether you are a natural
extrovert or not, is crucial for your success.
Being able to get over your dislike or fear of
networking is fundamental to ensuring that
you have an active and supportive
environment, that is ready to enable your
transition journey.
So, it’s time to put your fears aside, because
unless you get really good at this key activity,
you may find yourself on the bad end of a
career transition experience.
5
Ability to reach the
appropriate contacts
Depending on the level of role that you are in
today, or aiming for as your next executive
leader dream role, you may be faced with
higher barriers of entry. Some senior
executives that you would want to reach, may
be just difficult to access, and protected by
tough gatekeepers. Getting in front of the
appropriate people may be a challenge. In
some cases, going through the Human
Resources route, may be of little or no help. If
it is only appropriate to speak with C-level
leaders, they may also feel competitive or
threatened.
Getting the right level access and outreach
strategy can mean the difference between
success and failure.
You have not been
networking
For some, networking is a way of life. For
others, this may not necessarily be your walk
in the park. If you have not been networking
as a matter of course, and building that ever
more valuable network throughout your
career, getting to building at the last minute,
only when you figure out you need it, may be
seen as opportunistic, and may not yield the
result that you need.
You are not in with the
board or the ExCom
An estimated 80% of Senior Executive Roles
are placed through direct and indirect
networks connected to the Board or Executive
Team. If you don’t have that access, you will
be left out in the cold, and not top-of-mind to
those who are part of the decision for the
senior executive roles that you may be aiming
for.
Why Great Executive Leaders, In-Transition, Fail to Land.

Why Great Executive Leaders, In-Transition, Fail to Land.
Locked in the paradigm of
being the boss
Losing a job at this senior executive leadership
level may be devastating. The “bigger we are,
the harder we fall”. Feeling “invulnerable” on
the job, is typical for senior level executives, as
they think “layoffs won’t affect me; after all, I
am the boss!”
These are typical examples of how some
senior executives may have put blinders on as
to their own potential situation.
Sometimes “being the boss” is a paradigm that
we can get stuck into, and will make it feel
uncomfortable asking for help from others
who can advise us on the reality of our current
situation. Having been isolated and
“cocooned” or “coddled” for too long, may
make you feel as if you “CAN’T hack it on the
outside”. Afterall, you have spent over a
decade or two in the same company and job,
and you don’t know if you can go out “on a
date”, so to speak.
The perceptions of others
of your position
Did you fail in your last role? Or perhaps it
may seem to others that you did. on the
outside, did. As such, your failure may seem
greater – because you were higher up on the
corporate ladder.
Perhaps the opposite is true. You were too
much of a success. Whether it is true, or just
the perception of others, you may just not be
taken seriously as a job candidate (“s/he
doesn’t really need to work”).
Other people may also project their own fears
onto you, as they feel threatened. Some people
will try to shame you. Others in denial act
dismissively, not believing that your crisis is
real, and then people act like you’re
“contagious” (if YOU lost YOUR job, then NO
ONE is safe!).
All these perceptions can play a significant
part in how people around you, including your
network, react to your situation.
6
Not taking time to recover
from the situation
A major reason it’s so hard for senior
executive leaders to land on their feet is that
most of them need time to recover from
having lost their job, to begin with. Taking the
time to dive into your current reality properly,
getting clarity and focus, and not over-
rationalizing the issue, is key to moving on.
Depending on the circumstances of why you
left, you may not be ready to dive head-first
into a new role. Losing a job takes an
emotional toll that must be accounted for.
Working through those emotions, figuring out
what went wrong, and reflecting on what you
want going forward is a timely and necessary,
step.
More influencers involved
at those Levels
There are simply many more influencers and
decision makers involved in the process of
hiring a new senior executive leader, than
there are in hiring people at more junior roles.
You can expect to interview with several
members of the company’s senior staff, and
you may need to get sign-off from the board if
the new “gig” is at a publicly traded company.
More interviews and more people to mull over
the candidates means it’ll take more time than
you likely anticipate, and things can wrong at
any given point of the process for a wide
variety of reasons. You can also expect those
decision-makers to be picky, looking for the
smallest reason why the candidate is not
suitable, as everyone will be scrambling to put
themselves in the position of “I told you so”,
when things go wrong.
Success is not built on
SUCCESS
It’s Built on the backs of giants
who have tried and failed
many times.
Why Great Executive Leaders, In-Transition, Fail to Land.
 7

Rose
Hindy
Executive
Leadership
& Career
Transition
Coach

Your Leadership Partner


Why Great Executive Leaders, In-Transition, Fail to Land.
Your professional online
profile is not up to…
Most people at senior executive roles are busy
doing the job that they almost always forget to
take care of themselves. They don’t invest the
time in ensuring that they are keeping their
professional profile(s), up to date with their
current and most recent achievement.
Clarifying changes that are happening in their
career path is important. This is an oversight
that will surely come back to bite them later,
when they find themselves not being
approached early enough to catch the next
role.
Aligning your CV, with your Bio, with your
LinkedIn Profile, with what is being written
about you in the news, is key to maintaining a
consistent brand image and reputation that
can precede you ahead of the expiration of the
position that you are in. It can help you getting
approached by other, especially executive
headhunters, and keep you abreast of
potential opportunities that are out there.
You are not asking the
right questions
And you thought you were going in there to be
interviewed, which to you meant, that you are
only answering questions. Not at all the case.
As a senior executive leader, going in for the
interview, the quality and impact of the
questions you get to ask during your
interview, is probably more important than
how you answer questions from the board. If
you walk out with just a “thank you” at the
end, this might as well be the feedback you
will get from the board. Full Stop.
Those who succeed ask
QUESTIONS
8
You are not prepared with
good interview answers
Going in all gung-ho, having been used to
winging it, and being all over-confident can
put senior executive leaders in a precarious
and rather unprepared position during an
interview.
Most leaders at that level think, “Oh Dear, I
have interviewed so many other senior
leaders in my career, that this should be a
walk in the park for me”. This couldn’t be any
further from the truth. Interviewing others is
a science that is totally different from being
interviewed, and so many senior executive
leaders make the mistake of mixing them up
together.
The key is to get prepared by doing observed
mock-interviews that can help you
understand where your blind spots are, and
consider at least how else you could answer
certain questions.
You didn’t consider if the
job matches you
One of the main reasons why senior executive
leaders need to prepare themselves with
questions to ask to the board, is to figure out
whether the role is a good match with your
profile, background, experience, skill-set,
leadership ability and most importantly, a
cultural fit within the new organization.
Focusing your efforts
primarily on online jobs
On-line job boards represent only around
15% of executive job landings, as they focus
on more junior roles.
So if your strategy to find your next executive
leadership role is to purely apply to online
jobs, you will be missing out on 85% of the
potential roles out there. Your effort should be
focused more on a purposeful strategy to
engage directly with the right organizations
and the right decision makers through
professional and mindful networking.
Why Great Executive Leaders, In-Transition, Fail to Land.
 9
Why Great Executive Leaders, In-Transition, Fail to Land.

You are not tapping into

the unpublish job market
Now What!
The unpublished job market represents 75%
of all executive landings. The unpublished job
market is basically all the jobs that don’t really If you have been in any of the
get announced, not even with the executive
headhunters. These are the jobs that get filled above situations, and you are still
through internal and external organizational in-transition, you might want to
networking and recommendations. The
question that you as an executive should be consider connecting with one of
asking yourself is, are you connected to the our Executive Career Transition
right executives, at the right level, within the Coaches and get clear on how they
right organizations?
can help you land your next role.
Your CV has not been
Follow These 3 Easy Steps
assessed professionally
Just because you have reviewed many CVs
over the period of your career, and you have 1
probably hired amazing leaders to work with
you across different organizations, does not
necessary ensure that you are able to nail Take a Look at the Overview of
down a CV of your own that can be effective. the Executive Career Transition
One of the simplest pitfalls of not getting the Program outlined on page 11.
right role is that your CV may not be well
positioned for the roles that you are aiming
for. Having it reviewed by the right
professionals that can give you advice on what 2
kind of changes you can consider will go a
long way to making sure your CV resonates,
when shared. Review the Profiles of the
Executive Coaches and see who
Applying to fake jobs you may prefer to work with,
posted online also on page 11.
At best, only 5% of Senior Executive Roles
advertised online are real. Can you imagine
that? Most jobs posted online, to fill Senior
Executive Roles are actually not real jobs. The
reality is, that it is normally best practice not
3
to advertise such roles, due to the sensitive
nature surrounding such positions. Book your Complementary
So why then are they advertised? Some
Discovery Session with one of
recruiters will actually post these jobs, so that them.
executive leaders will apply to them and
submit a CV, helping the recruitment company
enhance their database, and perhaps even use
the contact information to engage with the Book a Free Discovery Session
candidates for business development
purposes instead of helping support their
transition.

Why Great Executive Leaders, In-Transition, Fail to Land.

 10

Wassim
Karkabi
Executive
Leadership
& Career
Transition
Coach

Your Leadership Partner

 11

The Executive Career Transition Coaching Program

STAGES PROGRAM ELEMENTS SESSIONS OPTIONAL ADD-ONS SESSIONS

MULTIVIEW 360 ASSESSMENT

GETTING CLARITY & FOCUS
Evolve to a newer version of you that is best fit for your future.
o Survey Roll-Out 1
o Feedback Session
o Discovery & Goal Setting 3 CULTURAL ADAPTABILITY PROFILING
o Leadership Profile & Personal Drivers
FOCUS o Personal Vision & Values o Survey Roll-Out
o Feedback Session
1
EXECUTIVE BRAND DEVELOPMENT
DEVELOPMENT & PLANNING o Brand Audit & Design [CV / LI Profile / Bio]
o Outreach Material / Message Development
3
Job Search Strategy Planning & Development
o Exploring Options & Scenarios 3 OBSERVED INTERVIEWING SESSIONS
ALIGN
o Job/Career Search Strategy Development o Mock Interview with a Head-hunter
o Report Generation & Feedback Session
2

BE-SPOKE ADVISORY SESSIONS

IMPLEMENTATION & ACCOUNTABILITY
Achieving progress through clear actionable execution of
your executive transition strategy.
o 4 to 5 Sessions of Accountability Coaching
ACHIEVE
BESPOKE
o Compensation Benchmarking & Negotiation
3 o Executive Networking Technique & Strategy
o Outreach Enablement & Methodology
o Be-Spoke…

RESOURCES & TOOLS

Access to an exclusive online platform, with content that will support your coaching your specific coaching journey.
Includes: Resources, Tools, Templates, Articles, Videos.

“A good coach can change your

game. A great coach can change
your life.”
John Wooden

Choose One of our Great Executive Coaches

Heidi-Mai Warren Wassim Karkabi Rose Hindy

Your Leadership Partner

 12
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