Career development: What it really means to be a manager, director, or VP
I am talking about one of three levels at which people operate: manager, director, and vice president. Here are my definitions:
Managers are paid to drive results with some support. They have experience in the function, can take responsibility, but are still learning the job and will have questions and need support. They can execute the tactical plan for a project but typically can’t make it.
Directors are paid to drive results with little or no supervision (“set and forget”). Directors know how to do the job. They can make a project’s tactical plan in their sleep. They can work across the organization to get it done. I love strong directors. They get shit done.
VPs are paid to make the plan. Say you run marketing. Your job is to understand the company’s business situation, make a plan to address it, build consensus to get approval of that plan, and then go execute it.
The biggest single development issue I’ve seen over the years is that many VPs still think like directors. [1]
Say the plan didn’t work. “But, we executed the plan we agreed to,” they might say, hoping to play a get-out-of-jail-free card with the CEO (which is about to boomerang). Of course, the VP got approval to execute the plan. Otherwise, you’d be having a different conversation, one about termination for insubordination.
But the plan didn’t work. Because directors are primarily execution engines, they can successfully play this card. Fair enough. Good directors challenge their plans to make them better. But they can still play the approval card successfully because their primary duty is to execute the plan, not make it.
VP’s, however, cannot play the approval card. The VP’s job is to get the right answer. They are the functional expert. No one on the team knows their function better than they do. And even if someone did, they are still playing the VP of function role and it’s their job – and no one else’s — to get the right answer.
But it’s the same standard to which the CEO is held. If the CEO makes a plan, gets it approved by the board, and executes it well but it doesn’t work, they cannot tell the board “but, but, it’s the plan we agreed to.” Most CEOs wouldn’t even dream of saying that. It’s because CEOs understand they are held accountable not for effort or activity, but results.
Part of truly operating at the VP level is to internalize this fact. You are accountable for results. Make a plan that you believe in. Because if the plan doesn’t work, you can’t hide behind approval. Your job was to make a plan that worked. If the risk of dying on a hill is inevitable, you may as well die on your own hill, and not someone else’s.
This is important not only because it prepares the VP to one day become a CEO, but also because it empowers the VP in making their plan.