Becoming a great CEO requires more than just business acumen. It’s a lonely position where you’re solely responsible for your company’s fate. From tough decisions about personnel to keeping an eye on the future, the weight of these responsibilities can be immense. Discover how to navigate these challenges and thrive as a leader.
Being a CEO is not an easy job. Despite the initial dreams of building a successful company, the reality is that crises and challenges are an inevitable part of the process. These issues can be macro or micro, ranging from financial crises to wrong hiring decisions, and they all contribute to what is known as The Struggle. The Struggle is the stress and burden that comes with being a CEO and making impossible decisions that can affect the company’s future. This burden can impact all aspects of a CEO’s life, including their physical and mental health, career, and relationships. Despite the challenges, The Struggle is where true greatness can emerge, as the CEO is responsible for navigating the difficulties and achieving success for the company. Whether the company succeeds or fails, it is the CEO who will bear the credit or the blame. Therefore, every CEO must learn to embrace The Struggle and develop the skills necessary to overcome it.
How Creativity and Teamwork Can Help CEOs Succeed
As the CEO of a company, facing The Struggle is inevitable, and the weight of the burden can seem unbearable at times. However, there are several strategies that can help you deal with it effectively. One of the best ways is to involve as many people as possible in the crisis you are facing. This helps to share the burden and ensures that everyone is focused and determined to make things work.
Another effective strategy is to get creative when you feel trapped with no way out. You need to think outside the box and do something unexpected to get the company back on track. For instance, during the dot-com boom, when the author’s company Loudcloud was $2 million behind its revenue target, he took the company public, raising the funds required to save the company that way.
Dealing with your own psychology is the hardest challenge that any CEO can face. You may feel lonely and face personal psychological problems during The Struggle. To overcome this challenge, you must learn from racecar drivers, who concentrate on the road ahead and not on the potential hazards and track walls. You must keep your focus on the solutions ahead of you, not the problems around you.
The Struggle is an inevitable part of being a CEO, but it is also where greatness arises. With teamwork, creativity, and a solution-oriented approach, you can successfully navigate the challenges and emerge stronger as a leader.
Why CEOs Should Be Honest About Problems and Bad News in Their Companies
As the CEO of a company, it can be difficult to give bad news to your workforce. However, transparency is key when dealing with challenges. Keeping secrets can lead to damaging surprises that erode trust and demoralize employees. Instead, preemptively divulging bad news allows the organization to focus on finding solutions quickly. This means that it is better to share any problems as soon as possible with your staff.
For example, imagine a company facing a crisis due to a major technological shift in the market. If the CEO hides the issue from her staff, it will take longer for her to understand the new technology and its costs and implications by herself. This is time that cannot be wasted in a crisis. However, if the CEO talks to their staff, they can quickly explore the new technology. Engineers can look at the technical issues, accountants can calculate the costs, and so forth.
Many CEOs are reluctant to share bad news because they believe their employees can’t handle the truth and should only receive positive news. However, employees tend to deal with bad news better than the CEO because the CEO is always held accountable for any crises.
By sharing problems with your workforce as soon as possible, you can ensure that solutions are found quickly. This helps to prevent rumors and hearsay and puts problems in the hands of those who can solve them. Being honest about challenges and bad news is crucial for success.
The Importance of Handling Layoffs Quickly and Fairly
Laying off employees is a difficult task that every CEO dreads. However, when it’s necessary, it must be done quickly and fairly. Delaying layoffs only causes uncertainty among employees, and secrecy damages trust. When the decision to lay off people has been made, it’s important to take action immediately. This means announcing the layoffs to the employees and giving them a clear explanation of why they are necessary.
Fair treatment of outgoing employees is also crucial. Giving them decent severance packages and good references not only boosts morale but also makes future recruiting easier. CEOs must justify the layoffs by admitting the company’s failure to meet its goals, rather than by suggesting that the company is correcting its underperformance.
Admitting failure has two main benefits. Firstly, it helps to build trust between the remaining employees and the CEO. Secondly, it acknowledges that the company has failed and needs to find a way forward. The CEO must also ensure that the employees understand that the layoffs are not a reflection of their performance but rather a consequence of the company’s failure.
Firing an executive can be a difficult and serious task for a CEO, with significant financial and cultural implications for the company. When faced with this task, there are a few key considerations to keep in mind.
First, it’s important to take responsibility for the mis-hire and explain this to the board. Understanding why the mistake was made and taking steps to avoid similar errors in the future can increase trust between the CEO and the board members.
Second, the conversation with the executive must be thoroughly prepared, including the severance package and the language used. It should not be a discussion about performance but rather an ending. It’s important to treat the outgoing executive fairly and respectfully, as this can help maintain the morale and performance of the executive team and ensure smooth operations after the departure.
Maintaining a sense of continuity in the business is also crucial. The CEO must take whatever steps necessary to keep the affected part of the business running normally, even if this means acting as a temporary replacement for the departed executive.
Building a great organization requires secrets that any CEO can learn. The key is to focus on creating a strong culture, hiring the right people, and providing a clear vision and purpose for the company. A strong culture is one in which employees feel valued and supported, and where there is open communication and transparency. Hiring the right people means finding those who are not only skilled but also fit well with the company culture and share its values.
How to Take Care of Your People: Invest in HR and Training
In order to build a successful organization, taking good care of your people is crucial. While many companies claim to prioritize their employees, not all truly understand that their people are more important than their products or profits. To better care for your staff, it is important to first establish a dependable human resources (HR) department, as they can give valuable signals about problems within the company. The HR department can provide insights into issues that might otherwise go unnoticed, such as uncompetitive compensation packages. By reassessing compensation offered based on HR feedback, you can make sure your company is offering fair salaries.
Another important aspect of taking good care of your people is investing in functional training. Employees need to be trained to better fit their roles, as every company has its own procedures and tools. Assuming that an outsider will pick up on these without training is a mistake. Functional training should give employees the experience and skills they need to succeed in their roles and meet their goals.
In addition to training individual employees, management training should also be provided to the management team. This ensures that managers understand how to train their staff and provide effective performance feedback. A good HR organization and comprehensive training are the cornerstones of caring for your staff. By taking care of your people, you can build a great organization that thrives.
How to Hire Executives Based on Their Strengths and Match Their Experience with Your Company’s Size
Recruiting the right people is crucial to the success of any company, but selecting the perfect candidate can be challenging. When hiring, it is important to focus on a candidate’s strengths, rather than their weaknesses. Strengths are what help individuals excel at their job and contribute to the company’s success. Rejecting a candidate for their weaknesses could mean overlooking their valuable skills and strengths, which could be an asset to the company.
When hiring executives, it is crucial to ensure that their experience aligns with the size of your company. The role of an executive in a small company is different from that of a large one. In larger companies, executives have to manage incoming work and review existing projects. In smaller companies, executives must create their own projects and drive their own work.
These differences can result in rhythm mismatches and skill set mismatches, which could impact the expected pace of work and the required skill set. For example, an executive arriving at a small company from a large one may find themselves surprised by the lack of incoming work and the need to create their own projects. Conversely, an executive from a smaller company may struggle to cope with the complexity and scale of a larger company.
To avoid such mismatches, it is important to ensure that the candidate’s experience aligns with the size of the company. By hiring people for their strengths and aligning their experience with the company’s needs, you can recruit the right people who will contribute to the company’s success.
Creating a Positive Workplace Culture: Tips for CEOs and Founders
Creating a positive work environment where employees are happy is a goal for every CEO and founder. One way to achieve this is to eliminate corporate politics, which is the manipulation of others for personal gain. To achieve this, the company should hire individuals who are ambitious for the success of the entire company rather than just their own careers. Strict processes that require regular performance evaluations, compensation scales, and promotion schedules can also discourage political maneuvering and prevent undeserved promotions.
A second way to make the company a pleasant place to work is by creating a culture that differentiates it from competitors. For example, Amazon used old doors as desks to demonstrate its commitment to saving money for its customers. It is also important to communicate the value of each employee’s work and their position in the company hierarchy. Clear titles and job descriptions can help employees understand the value of their work and their compensation. However, companies should avoid the “Law of Crappy People,” which assumes that the value of a title is determined by its least competent holder. This can lead to undervalued and demotivated employees.
In addition, a great CEO should possess certain qualities, such as being able to articulate a clear vision for the company and inspire others to achieve it. They should also be able to hire and retain top talent, create a culture of trust and accountability, and have the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Great CEOs should also be able to manage risk effectively and make difficult decisions.
The two essential skills of a great CEO
Being a successful CEO is a challenging role, and it’s no surprise that their biographies are popular. The primary duty of a great CEO is to accomplish two tasks: finding the right direction for the organization and persuading the rest of the team to follow.
The first task requires a CEO to find the right direction for the company to pursue. This requires determination, strategic thinking, and persistence. For example, when the author’s company, Opsware, experienced a stock market collapse, he had to convince an investor to back the company and help him lead it in the right direction.
The second task involves articulating and communicating the company’s vision, being authentic, motivating, and getting the company to execute on that vision. Effective communication is critical in conveying the vision, as it allows employees to understand what the company stands for and what they’re working toward. Steve Jobs is an excellent example of a CEO who excelled in this area, as he was able to inspire and motivate Apple’s employees, even when the company was facing bankruptcy.
Bill Campbell, a CEO of various companies, is an excellent example of authenticity and motivation. He had a way of connecting with employees that made them feel like the company belonged to them, which helped in rallying the team to work together to achieve the company’s objectives.
Finally, Andy Grove’s example shows how a CEO’s decisiveness and conviction can drive a company forward and into a position of strength. Despite the high costs involved, he led Intel into the field of microprocessing, ultimately enabling the company to emerge as a dominant player in the tech industry.
A great CEO must find the right direction for the company and get everyone on board with the company’s vision. This requires determination, strategic thinking, effective communication, authenticity, motivation, decisiveness, and conviction.
Understanding the Two Types of CEOs: Decision Makers and Implementers
CEOs can broadly be categorized into two types: Ones and Twos. Ones are leaders who focus on defining a path for their organization, while Twos are more focused on implementing and managing the execution of the plan. Bill Gates is a classic example of a One who defined a long-term vision for Microsoft, but may not have been as involved in the day-to-day execution. In contrast, Twos may excel at execution and performance management, but may struggle with making major strategic decisions.
While some organizations run by Ones can become disorganized and chaotic, those run by Twos may waver when it comes to important decisions. The most effective CEOs, however, are those who combine the strengths of both types. This is achieved by functional Ones, who act as Twos when it comes to the overall corporate direction, but as Ones in their own area of responsibility and expertise.
For instance, the head of sales in a company may be a One when making major decisions relating to sales, but may prefer to focus on execution when it comes to the overall corporate plan. This combination of skills is crucial for a CEO to be successful in leading an organization. It’s important for leaders to work on skills that may be outside their comfort zone to achieve this balance.
Understanding the Difference Between Peacetime and Wartime CEOs
Most management books provide advice for businesses that have a clear direction to pursue and a focus on capturing market share from competitors. However, some companies face more severe circumstances, requiring either a Peacetime CEO or a Wartime CEO. A Peacetime CEO is suitable when a company has an advantage over its competitors, and the market is growing. The CEO’s job in this scenario is to enhance that advantage and encourage employee creativity. For instance, Google allows employees to spend 20% of their time on independent projects, some of which have turned into successful Google products.
On the other hand, Wartime CEOs are required when macroeconomic shifts, new competitor threats, changes in the technology landscape, or other factors threaten the company’s survival. A Wartime CEO carries a significant responsibility because the company lives or dies by their decisions. Andy Grove, the CEO of Intel in the 1980s, is an example of a Wartime CEO. At that time, over 80% of Intel’s workforce was dedicated to producing memory products. However, the company faced attacks from Japanese semiconductor firms with superior products. Grove made the difficult decision to change the company’s direction and go into microprocessing instead. This choice proved successful.
Depending on the company’s circumstances, it may need a Peacetime CEO to take advantage of an existing market position or a Wartime CEO to navigate a crisis. The company’s survival depends on the CEO’s ability to make critical decisions and implement necessary changes. While most management books focus on a peacetime strategy, it is equally essential to understand and prepare for wartime scenarios.
Overcoming Discomfort and Embracing Authenticity, Feedback, and Uncomfortable Tasks
Becoming a great CEO may seem like a daunting task, but it’s a role that can be grown into with the right combination of skills and traits. While there’s no way to predict the success of a CEO beforehand, there are certain general characteristics that are often associated with great CEOs.
One key trait of great CEOs is their authenticity. They stay true to their own unique style and personality, which helps them build credibility and trust with their employees. For example, if a CEO prefers to use profanities when communicating, they can make it clear to their employees that it’s acceptable as long as it’s not used to harass or intimidate others.
Another important skill for CEOs is giving feedback. The “shit sandwich” approach can work well for junior employees, but higher-level executives may find it insincere. Therefore, it’s important to tailor feedback to the individual and situation.
Perhaps the most important characteristic of great CEOs is their ability to do uncomfortable things with ease. Just like boxers train themselves to become comfortable with initially unnatural footwork, great CEOs must learn to make their unnatural job feel natural. This means getting used to evaluating someone else’s performance, even if it’s in a field where the CEO has little personal experience.
Emotional and Rational Considerations when Deciding to Sell Your Company
Selling a company can be an emotional and rational struggle for entrepreneurs who have created a business from scratch. While some may dream of retiring after selling, the offer may trigger doubts and a strong attachment to the company. Understanding the different types of acquisitions that exist in the technology industry can help entrepreneurs make a more informed decision.
The first type of acquisition targets the talent and/or technology of the company, with a range of $5-$50 million. The second type involves the acquisition of products that the acquirer will sell as they are, typically ranging from $25-$250 million. The third type of acquisition is the purchase of the entire business, and these deals are usually the biggest, costing billions of dollars.
Regardless of the type of acquisition, the decision to sell will be emotionally challenging and difficult to justify rationally. The founder may feel that they are selling out on their dream, and leaving behind a reliable source of income. It is essential to communicate the goals and expectations of the company with stakeholders and to ensure that personal finances do not influence the decision.
From a rational perspective, entrepreneurs should consider if selling is the right choice. It is not recommended to sell if the company has an early mover advantage in a large market that they believe they can lead. However, this requires an honest appraisal, which can be challenging to estimate.
Ultimately, the decision to sell a company is a deeply personal one. Entrepreneurs should consider the emotional and rational factors involved, and communicate transparently with stakeholders. Understanding the different types of acquisitions in the technology industry can help entrepreneurs make a more informed decision.
Running a business can be an incredibly challenging and isolating experience. It can create a significant amount of stress and may impact various aspects of your life. This is what is known as “The Struggle.” However, it is worth noting that “The Struggle” can also inspire individuals to achieve greatness.
Inspired by a book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”; Ben Horowitz