By Anthony Moss
Life at the top can be a lonely place. In successful companies, the CEO needs decision-making confidence, and the leadership team needs the appropriate skills to take the business to the next level. There’s one key thing that they need to consider to supercharge their decision making.
Life at the top can be a lonely place. In successful small companies, the CEO needs decision-making confidence, and the leadership team needs the appropriate skills to take the business to the next level. Capability evolves over time. Unless there is an internal or external catalyst for dramatic change, the step-change in capability is likely to be slow and incremental. The same applies to you. If your skills and frame of reference remain the same, your capability also remains the same. Maybe you’re already upskilling yourself, your people and your leadership team. From time to time, you engage expert consultants to address known challenges. If you have a board, your discussions might be well-meaning, but perhaps the conversations tend to be repetitive or focus too much on operations and not enough on strategy. You’re doing everything possible to scale beyond Fighting for Position, but you know something is missing. The pressure to find the right solution falls squarely on your shoulders.
Commercially Lonely
Sitting at the top of a company is what I describe as a commercially lonely position. People assume that the title of CEO bestows you with superhuman skills to achieve all tasks no matter what the needs of the company. This expectation comes from the people you lead and your fellow shareholders and directors. There are often decisions that need to be made that cannot be discussed with other people in the organisation, and there is pressure from the board, whether perceived or real, to ‘have the answers’. This is how it feels to be commercially lonely.
Constructively Discontent
CEOs are also hardwired to think there is a better way, even if they can’t quite articulate what ‘better’ looks like or how to achieve it. Despite their success, they know that the market share could be greater, efficiency could be better, and company profits could be higher. The thought pattern is this: I love what we’re achieving, but we could be doing much more. This powerful motivator is inherent in most CEOs; it motivates the CEO to drive the next growth stage. However, communicating your discontent can have the opposite effect on your leadership team. Being what I call Constructively Discontent can demotivate your team if they consistently perceive you, their CEO, as dissatisfied.
You’re playing the business version of Snakes and Ladders, navigating the highs and lows in one minute, with total control, while losing it all the next minute, causing a huge impact. You must find the right balance in setting the performance expectations of your team to motivate, not demotivate. At the same time, you often must take charge in pressing circumstances when it is not appropriate or possible to explore your options before making a decision. This is the role you have chosen. You can choose to stay in this mode, figuring it all out as you go and evolving slowly, or you can fast-track your learning and build a support structure around you that can lend you the skills to take your business to the next stage swiftly and with confidence.
I described CEOs who are commercially lonely. When independent advisers are appointed to the Advisory Board, it becomes a forum where the CEO can discuss any issue of concern, particularly those that cannot be discussed with other staff members. These conversations might relate to strategies that will impact business performance, employment, leadership team capability, and even the navigation of difficult conversations with fellow shareholders/directors.
The CEO can explore and discuss potential initiatives without judgement. The Advisory Board can challenge, support, and offer alternative ideas that the CEO can consider.
This is about ensuring that they are focused on the important and not the urgent-unimportant. That said, the CEO retains control. Seeking the counsel of the Advisory Board
does not mean that advice binds them. The CEO is free to decide the course of action.
With an Advisory Board acting as a coach, mentor and expert advisory team, the CEO has a support structure that empowers them with the right mindset and skill set to be the best they can be. This translates to better decisions and leadership that ultimately leads to better performance and is the key to transcending your business’s Fighting for Position stage to becoming an industry leader.
Anthony Moss
