What Leaders Can Learn from the V Flying Formation Geese Employ to Stay on Course
Rotate who bears the load of leadership to reduce the pressure at the top, grow leadership capacity, and keep the entire organization on track.
Caitlyn was astonished to see Daria looking refreshed and relaxed. They were meeting for their monthly coffee chat at a favorite coffee shop.
Once again, Caitlyn was plagued with dark cycles under her eyes. But this time, Daria didn’t look hunched over with exhaustion. Instead, Daria was standing tall and had a glow about her.
Skipping the small talk, Caitlyn launched in, “You look amazing! How did you do it? What’s your secret? A new mask, collagen powder, a new workout?”
Daria looked a little taken aback at first. Her friend and fellow CEO was always direct, but she seemed much more impatient and pointed this morning.
Daria took a breath and smiled gently. She wasn’t sure what was happening for her friend, but she was eager to support her. Best to answer her directly.
“Hm… well, I took Thursday and Friday off last week to get a weekend trip away. I needed some space from the business to clear my mind, so I got an Airbnb in a small, quiet town outside of the city. It was great!” Daria shared.
Caitlyn was so surprised. She paused for a moment, and then asked, “But how could you do that? Who managed the business while you were away?!?!?”
Daria calmly answered, “Well, you remember Tom — the vice president I hired a few months ago? Well, he’s been onboarding so well. He’s been stepping up across the business — especially in the areas where I’m not as strong. We talked a bit about what needed to be done while I was away and he felt clear and I trusted him. So I let him take the reins while I went away. It went so well, I’m thinking of doing this every quarter.”
Caitlyn was flummoxed. How had Daria come to the conclusion that she could step away regularly? Who was this Tom and could Caitlyn find one? If Daria had figured it out, could Caitlyn do the same?
You don’t have the bear the brunt of leadership alone.
Caitlyn and Daria each ran small, moderately growing startups. Both organizations consisted of about 20-30 people and both CEOs had been through their share of tough times.
Caitlyn had been going through a particularly difficult patch these past few months as increased staff turnover had resulted in functional gaps and stressed operational teams.
Daria to Caitlyn’s knowledge wasn’t coasting either. Plus, Daria wasn’t one to take time off. In their 2 years of monthly coffee chats, Daria had never taken a long weekend.
Caitlyn needed to know how Daria managed it.
Business inspiration can come from unusual places.
Daria shared a story first about how she was sitting at a park one day and watching the geese fly south. As she watched the geese, Daria recalled a nature program that explained why geese flew in a V formation:
Reducing headwinds: The geese at the front reduced air friction for the rest of the flock, thereby making the flight less taxing
Efficiency: By rotating the goose in the lead position, it allowed all of the geese to fly for longer segments
Coordination: The V enables all of the geese to see each other, signal to each other, and stay on course more easily
These points all made a ton of sense to Daria, and the second point stood out. Why couldn’t she do the same at work? Why couldn’t she rotate someone in for her job to give herself a rest?
The job of a CEO is nearly impossible when you consider what the role demands from leaders.
It’s rare to find strong CEOs who can stay the course. They not only have to be experienced, possess IQ and EQ, but they need to navigate increasingly complex and fast-paced changes in technology, market dynamics, and even socio-political changes.
It’s why so many CEOs are facing burnout or worse. In February of 2024, the The Wall Street Journal reported that more than 1,900 CEOs left their jobs in 2023, and a record 19 died in office. A Deloitte study indicated that 82 percent of CEOs have experienced exhaustion indicative of burnout, and 96 percent feel their mental health has declined.
What’s the solution?
Beyond setting more reasonable goals and spending more wisely, CEOs need to consider their staffing plans and how they can resource themselves and their teams in a way that allows for greater coverage and more sustainability.
The best CEOs know that they need to hire better than themselves. Truly stellar CEOs know that hiring talent that’s better than you isn’t enough. They have to deploy that talent well.
Give your top talent a chance to shine and give yourself a chance to recuperate by giving them opportunities to lead in larger and more significantly impactful capacities. Bearing the brunt of daily headwinds is exhausting, but every organization needs someone at the helm. It just doesn’t always have to be you.
By stretching your top leaders, you can enable them to learn faster and your organization will move forward more efficiently without you as a bottleneck.
The great news is that there is a diversity of talent out there to surround yourself with and top talent is always looking for the chance to step up and grow.
Here’s how to set up rotational leadership opportunities well.
Build Your V-formation in 4-Steps
1. Get clear on your purpose upfront
Your goals can be as discrete as planning ahead of a specific person’s parental leave or as general as designing a system to allow your leadership team to rotate who takes short or long vacations. It can also be a way to help you learn more about the skills of top leaders as part of building out a long-term succession plan. There are many potential goals. Just be clear on what matters most in your organization.
Once you know what you are aiming for, it’s much easier to prioritize tasks. For example, if you are designing to relieve pressure on one person, you can be very targeted versus trying to create a system for an entire leadership team. Regardless of your goal, make sure your update and use your financial model to take into account what you think you need and to understand the ramifications of such a design on your numbers.
2. Don’t design in secret
Discuss what you’re trying to do and how you are trying to do it. This way you can get input from the people you trust.
By being transparent about what you’re trying to achieve, you can more easily make adjustments and alter your approach in a way that feels less disruptive to your team.
What’s mysterious and unknown can feel scary and generate distrust. Even if you don’t get it right the first time, if your team knows what you’re trying to do, they will be much more patient, more forgiving, and more able to help you troubleshoot.
The most important people who need to know? Your head of finance to work it into the model, your head of people so that they can help you think about people implications, and the leaders who will be stepping up and stepping in so that they know what you are trying to achieve and how they can contribute.
3. Develop your team to complement you (and your leadership team)
Use this opportunity to hire or develop internal talent with complementary skills and abilities. The people you designate to step in don’t have to have the same level of experience and the exact same skillset. In fact, you’ll be creating a stronger team if they diversify the skills in your organization.
Before you make role changes or start to hire new talent, take stock of both current responsibilities and skill needs and what you anticipate needing going forward. Businesses change rapidly and if you design a solution on what you need today, you will find that by the time you hire the people and train them, your needs will already have shifted.
Be OK with not covering all the bases. No one person will possess your strengths and strengths in all the areas where you are weaker. Prioritize what you think matters most.
For example, if you want to create a more inclusive culture, hire a leader who excels in that mode of leadership and spend time together aligning on the kinds of behavior and process changes you both can buy into. Doing this will relieve you of the need to figure out how to do this, and ensure that the proclivities of the new leader are fully integrated into the culture.
4. Delegate well & clearly authorize decision-making
One of the biggest issues with interim coverage is that the leaders who are left in place are not fully authorized to lead. As a result, the team is left confused and in an unhelpful holding pattern. This is the opposite of what you’re trying to do.
If you appoint someone to lead in your absence or the absence of another leader, get very clear about what topics and types of decisions can they make and what the path of escalation looks like.
One excellent way to do this is scenario plan together so that you are aligned about key decision principles before a crisis arrives. Even if the specifics of an issue don’t 100% match up, it’s OK because you have discussed the principles of what matters and why.
Key Takeaways
You don’t have to take all of these steps at once. Even acknowledging the need for this structure is a win. Understanding how to distribute and delegate authority and decision-making is no small task. But the rewards can be significant:
A more efficient team
Improved retention of top talent because they experience more growth opportunities
A CEO and leadership team that is less likely to burn out
Leveraging more diverse perspectives to strengthen the business and the organization
In 4 steps, you can test out this model and see if it works for your team:
Get clear on your purpose upfront
Don’t design in secret
Develop your team to complement you (and your leadership team)
Delegate well & clearly authorize decision-making
The work world has changed tremendously in the past few decades, it’s time for our leadership models to change as well.
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This is such a refreshing and human take on leadership. So often, we celebrate resilience without acknowledging that shared responsibility is what actually makes it sustainable. Thank you for showing how rest, trust, and team development can be part of a serious, strategic leadership model, not a sign of weakness.
Nature holds so many answers people forget can be used across our lives and in business. Love how you brought in the Geese + their flight pattern to remind us to look for answers around us.