WHEN EXECUTIVES DIVORCE:
Where Does the Leadership Go?

January 2002

A Florida paper recently reported that there would not be a final divorce decree granted to a 55 year old executive, known throughout the state for his track record as a successful business leader. The executive didn’t change his mind about wanting a divorce. He just died – without warning, at the TEN YEAR mark of his costly, high-profile battle…. before he was able to launch the next chapter of his life. The now grown children were unavailable for comment.

Having advised hundreds of executives for over 15 years in matters related to business and personal change, I know that this story is not an isolated instance. Countless executive divorces are messy, protracted, consuming, costly, and emotionally damaging to most everyone involved.

Ironically, however, the same strategies and skills that produce leadership success in business can be applied to the high stakes, personally defining life transition known as divorce. What often stands in the way is one’s inability to view divorce differently. Rather than seeing it as an ending to be managed, it should be seen as a relational change to be led. Divorcing executives who appreciate and understand the similarities between their work and their family leadership responsibilities are better able to guide their individual and family transformation more successfully.

CURRENT STATE

How do many executives currently approach their divorces? Think of it this way: Can we imagine a board of directors or a group of stockholders being pleased with a business situation in which there was:

• No clear and inspiring vision established or communicated (or even seen as necessary).
• No accountability to certain goals and targets (as established by the leader with input from relevant others).
• Aversion to, or dismissal of, critical feedback.
• A conflict management approach characterized by emotional reactivity, overt and covert blaming, and passing the buck of responsibility.
• Predominant focus on ‘winning’ in the short-term and insufficient attention paid to the long term consequences of certain actions or agreements.
• Repeated disregard or ignorance of what experts define as the needs/wants of some priority constituents (i.e., kids).
• Not holding themselves privately and publicly accountable to world class standards, regardless of specific circumstances or the behavior of others.

Continue...