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Video: Leaders' Lessons, tips from the top bosses

We live in a curious world in which there is no release from the obligation to be available. The mobile phone puts us, our thoughts, our feelings and our reactions at the disposal of everyone we know, and as if the ability to talk 24/7 isn’t enough, now the word blackberry has come to mean not a tasty purple pie-filler but a device that brings e-mail into our bedrooms, our bathrooms and alongside the holiday pool. Pity the chief executive who no longer has a hiding place from the perpetual pressure to perform.

As a partner with the executive coaching firm Praesta Partners LLP, Heather Dawson has observed the accelerating pace of business life, and noted the growing demands on those who operate at a senior level. Evolving communications technology, global travel and high performance expectations make the lives of today’s captains of industry faster, more frenetic and more complex than even ten years ago. Yet as every sighting of Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Donald Trump confirms, there are many people in business who thrive in this environment.

Equally, there are others who falter and fail, unable to survive in a macho culture that brands fast as good and slow as bad.

For this reason Dawson decided to identify the traits and practices that make a successful senior executive. After consulting hundreds of clients, she has written Faster, Faster, a concise guide on how to get to the top. First, she says, successful executives are in control of their lives rather than controlled by their jobs: “One key element is that they understand that they have choices.” They know what is important to them, what they want to achieve, how they want to lead their lives, and they are positive. This doesn’t mean that they all operate in the same way: some like to be on call permanently, others limit their availability, sometimes switching off their mobile phones and e-mail to control interruptions and increase their ability to concentrate. But because they are making their own choices and defining their own boundaries, they feel in control.

Secondly, they make time to think and focus. The world of perpetual communication and multi-tasking clearly mitigates against this, which is why high-level executives understand that “thinking doesn’t have to be done at a fast pace, it needs to be done clearly and slowly”, as Dawson puts it. Those who succeed create time and opportunities for uninterrupted thinking, she says. This may be dinner with a trusted colleague, a walk or working from home one day a week. One executive she knows has a second, uncluttered, desk facing a corner of his office where he sits when he wants no distractions.

The third key practice is an ability to lead in a climate of uncertainty and ambiguity. While those lower down the tree may find this prospect terrifying, successful senior executives are comfortable with it and are able to adapt in the way they respond to the people around them. “All hell may be breaking loose around you, but you know where you’re going, you believe that you’re going to get there and you’re able to shift tactically as events unfold,” says Dawson.

Fourthly, those who cope best recognise when they’re running on empty and are about to lose their sense of perspective, and thus stop themselves reaching the point where they start to foam at the mouth. Getting enough sleep and eating well are obvious factors, and those attuned to dealing with perpetual pressure also know that they can clear their heads and regain their composure quickly with a glass of water, a ten-minute walk or a call to a friend or partner. Outside the office they have what she calls an oxygen tent, a pocket separate from holidays or family life that recharges their batteries by temporarily removing them from the rest of their life. This could be a hobby or sport, a cultural activity or charity work.

These are the tenets that not only keep CEOs in their job, but also enable them to relish it. Underlying them, says Dawson, are three foundation skills: the understanding that they can’t do everything and will benefit from surrounding themselves with complementary skills; the ability to process conflicting sources of information and work out exactly what is going on; and a talent for thinking ahead and planning.

That’s the theory, but how does it work in practice? Are you born with the temperament that enables you to canter effortlessly through a top job, or do you acquire the tools to cope with it through practice?

Kyle Whitehill, 45, is the head of Vodafone’s UK enterprise business, in charge of £1.7 billion of revenue and 3,000 people. He happily admits that his downtime is spent watching “rubbish telly” with his wife and children at their home a few minutes’ drive from his Newbury office. He gets up at 6.30am, works at least 11 hours a day, plus three nights a week and a few hours at the weekend. He exercises four times a week and plays golf to clear his mind but is on call 24/7. His thinking time comes when he is travelling: “Driving, with the radio off. Flying’s great; I get time at the airport.

“I destress the world around me as much as I can. The old-fashioned management style was to take an issue, explode it, cause a bit of a fuss. I pick my fights, am more relaxed about stuff going on around me. I can’t fix every issue in a 3,000-person organisation, but I can listen and look for themes.”

Unlike Dawson’s prototype, he says he finds ambiguity unnerving but, significantly, he has developed a strategy to make himself feel in control. “I see an issue coming towards me and put the stuff that isn’t important to one side. I recognise what’s out of my control and manage the bits that I can manage. Once I’ve reduced its impact from 10 out of 10 to 2 out of 10, I’ll deal with that.”

Simon Townsend, 45, is the chief operating officer of Enterprise Inns, Britain’s second-largest pub chain. He talks quickly, and sometimes resorts to the watchful language of a poker player who can’t show his hand. Self-analysis may serve a senior executive, public self-analysis is another matter.

“A key to managing conditions around one’s work and home life is having sufficient awareness of the possibility of something to be able to respond to the signals when they arrive. I don’t think I get stressed, though I do get pressurised. I’m sufficiently aware of the prospect to know that if individuals who matter to me told me that my behaviour, my appearance, actions, activities were indicating a cause for concern, I’m sure I’d pick up on those signals very quickly.”

His working hours are undefined, but he works from his Midlands home one day a week. “If I can participate, respond and get positively involved with my family, I feel that I’ve got control. I never used to see them, I always worked at weekends. I was helped by my wife, colleagues, friends to understand that there was a point in my life where if I didn’t get it right, I would never get it back again. It was a bit of a hard moment. But it wasn’t difficult to understand. Now I’m better at being available to my family in the same way that I’ve always been available to my business. That took real discipline.

“You can’t do this in isolation. If I explain to people what matters to me, how I would like to manage my circumstances, they can accommodate it. I don’t want to switch off my phone; what I do is agree the rules of engagement with my team. I am available 24 hours a day but that doesn’t worry me or my wife because she knows that when people get in touch with me it’s because it matters.”

Townsend has never found ambiguity difficult. “You get some confidence out of reminding yourself about the things that you are in control of, and reviewing how well you’re doing. If you’ve got the right quality of people around you, you do get reassured. I’m not frightened of it.” And his switch-off mechanism? His sessions with an executive coach, he says. It sounds as if he doesn’t switch off at all, I suggest. “That’s probably right. I don’t feel the need to.” The remark is central to understanding the make-up of a successful executive: he doesn’t want to switch off, he doesn’t see a work call taken at home as intrusion, he doesn’t resent it – he welcomes it.

This characteristic becomes even clearer when I talk to former captains of industry. Fergus Brownlee, 52, is a cheerful advocate of high-pressure corporate life. After 13 years with Mars – one year he took 22 transatlantic flights, plus several other long-haul journeys – he joined Capital One Europe, became principal managing director, and retired at 49 – as he had always promised himself he would. Bored, he went back to work as the CEO of Cambridge Education, where he enjoys bringing business principles to a small specialised company. He insists that he separates work and business, but his BlackBerry is on all the time, including poolside on holiday, and he isn’t averse to excusing himself from a family meal to check a message. His best ideas often come on the golf course, he says – here is another man who doesn’t want to switch off.

“To succeed in the corporate world you have to be turned on by growth and/or profitability, to want to build things,” he says. “When corporate people say they’re shrinking violets I find it hard to believe. You have to want to put your stamp on something that’s going to be bigger and better for your contribution. I love being told, whether on the golf course or at a business meeting, that I can’t play that shot or can’t do that: I get turned on by thinking, ‘How can I achieve that?’ If you don’t thrive in change I doubt you’ll be successful in senior management; if you’re not going to change anything, what are you there for?” Rob Verrion was Transco’s chief operating officer until, at the age of 51, he chose redundancy and a pension after the company was taken over by National Grid. In the four years since, he has continued to do consultancy work and some executive coaching, and has a nonexecutive directorship and a charity directorship. “I did miss the big job at first,” he says. “Not the position itself: the excitement and pressure. Uncertainty and ambiguity? That was the bit I liked. Pressure is good, it keeps you on your toes.

“Holding a senior executive position felt natural. Sometimes when you’re under stress you’re not even aware of it. You need a certain resilience, but you also need to be able to manage yourself so that you create a bit of private space where you can relax. Lots of people work hard, but you’ve got to enjoy working hard. The crucial point is that if you have a significant amount of authority and power, that can be a stress reliever. It’s when you lack the power to change things, or people don’t pay attention to you as much as you would like, that it’s stressful. It’s a paradox: the farther up the tree you go, the more able you are to deal with pressures and stress than people in other parts of the organisation because you have got the power, the authority and the tools. You have to be able to generate enthusiasm, which you can do by being cheerful even if you don’t feel cheerful. And it helps if you can recognise your own faults because then you can identify where you need help.”

He always felt in control, he says, but then, as only a former senior executive can, he modifies this. “That’s the black-and-white answer. The reality is that you go through periods when you feel you’re being controlled and others when you are very much in control. It ebbs and flows.”

James Rose had an equally sure-footed ascent up the corporate ladder until, in his late thirties, he found himself leaving his family early on Monday mornings, travelling throughout Europe, returning home late on Friday night, turning into Grumpy Dad on Saturday and getting ready to travel again on Sunday. As operations director for the automotive components company TRW, he was responsible for nine European plants and 4,000 people. “I wouldn’t call myself a senior executive but it was a big job,” he says with some understatement.

That was when he reassessed his life. He loved the job, found it fulfilling. The problem was that he barely saw his family and was unable to engage fully with his church and youth group activities. After “open and honest” discussions with his company, he has kept his job title and status, but now works only three days a week – an enlightened resolution that capitalises on his experience and skill. “It wasn’t that I couldn’t cope with it, but when you take on families and other things you’ve got to make that assessment.

“You don’t switch off and that’s not because of the demands of the company, it’s the expectations you put on yourself. I didn’t really have control and I had to regain it. I had a competitive upbringing and I throw myself fully into things. But I had too many things that I wanted to throw myself into. Adrenalin got me through work. I enjoy the challenges, but you have to able to get some sort of life balance. I had to step back and make changes.

“I see myself more as a team captain than a team manager, on the field as opposed to shouting instructions from off the field. The strategy of very senior people is to portray calmness, but that doesn’t mean that the stresses aren’t there.”

www.praesta.co.uk

Strategies for success
1 Be in control: the job does not control you – because you set your own boundaries
2 Create time to think
3 Don’t be fazed by uncertainty and ambiguity
4 Recognise when you’re running on empty and develop strategies that enable you to recover