WPP WPP PLC

By Joann S. Lublin 

Evan Hanlon wishes he had sought help before his big career leap from managing 80 staffers to overseeing 500 people.

His stressful 2017 promotion at GroupM, the media-buying arm of WPP PLC, felt "like going from being an air-traffic controller to being a pilot," Mr. Hanlon said.

It took a year before Mr. Hanlon received guidance from a coach, brought in by the company after he clashed with several executives outside his new area. Getting coached sooner "would have been useful on-the-job training for that big leap," he said.

Many executives are making big leaps these days. They land complex, powerful posts where they command dozens, hundreds or even thousands of associates for the first time. But a vastly larger role might overwhelm the unprepared, several executives and management specialists say.

"Executives taking such stretch assignments fail often without proper support," said Rose Fiorilli, an executive coach. Successful leapers connect well with key colleagues, delegate extensively and lead transparently, according to executives who have leapt and their coaches.

"This type of move may become more popular, given employers' increased emphasis on rotational assignments and decreased number of management layers," predicted Kevin Martin, chief research officer at the Institute for Corporate Productivity.

More companies now ease leapers' tricky transition through what is known as acclimation coaching, career advisers report. Ms. Fiorilli helps executives adjust after big leaps roughly twice as frequently as five years ago.

Others, such as Mastercard Inc., offer executive-development programs that can help identify "potential blind spots that might derail [executives] when they step into a bigger role," said Michael Fraccaro, chief people officer of the global payments company. Mastercard's program provides individual coaching and connects up-and-coming executives within a company.

A business that expects leaping bosses to sink or swim "is probably not a place you'd want to be unless you like sinking," said Lisa Kohn, Mr. Hanlon's coach and a partner at Chatsworth Consulting Group. Group M retained her after Mr. Hanlon's conflicts with colleagues.

Mr. Hanlon said they accurately viewed him as tough to work with because he arrogantly defended his broadened turf. He blamed his inexperience and desire to rapidly demonstrate that he could handle 500 employees.

He met face-to-face with 10 GroupM peers after they gave Ms. Kohn anonymous feedback about his leadership. Mr. Hanlon promised greater collaboration and patience. He said he fulfilled his pledge by touching base with those executives after difficult meetings, for instance.

In March 2019, GroupM elevated Mr. Hanlon to U.S. chief strategy officer. This month, he became chief product officer for Essence, a GroupM agency.

For AJ Bernstein, a big leap has worked well partly because she delegated duties to an unprecedented degree. She became a vice president of Wm. Bolthouse Farms Inc. last October, eight months after the food producer recruited her for the position of senior strategy director.

Ms. Bernstein started managing 42 staffers, compared with three previously. The new marketing executive also supervised people outside her expertise for the first time.

Aided by a coach, Ms. Bernstein said she soon recognized that shedding certain tasks would free time for important, reflective thinking. She elevated a lieutenant to be her chief of staff and handed over numerous projects. She is the only Bolthouse vice president with a chief of staff.

Stacey Tank aimed to be a highly visible leader when she landed her first major operational role at Home Depot Inc. in 2018. She took the helm of a U.S. unit that arranges home renovations and repairs.

Overseeing its 5,000 workers represented a huge leap. Ms. Tank previously led 100 employees as the retailer's chief communications officer.

"I knew everyone's names," the executive recalled. "I knew about their families."

To connect with her enlarged workforce, Ms. Tank said she conducts virtual town-hall meetings every month where associates "can ask me anything they want." She and management team members get grilled about issues such as product launches, career advancement and an internal home-design app that sometimes crashed.

Kelly Grier pursued transparent leadership further after her 2018 big leap at Ernst & Young LLP. She directed 12,000 staffers at the U.S. arm of the global business-services firm until EY promoted her to take charge of the Americas -- and more than 75,000 employees.

Ms. Grier says you can't lead that many people unless they trust you: "They need to believe you're holding nothing back."

The coronavirus pandemic has intensified the executive's commitment to extreme transparency. Among other things, Ms. Grier activated EY's crisis-response team for her 31-country region on Feb. 25 and suspended business travel days later. She conducted internal video webcasts about the virus on March 20 and 24.

She promised no U.S. layoffs for the foreseeable future during Tuesday's webcast, viewed by most of her 50,000-plus U.S. staffers.

Nevertheless, Ms. Grier said earlier, "we're creating the playbook for this [crisis] minute by minute, day by day."

Write to Joann S. Lublin at joann.lublin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 25, 2020 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)

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