WHY YOU NEED TO INVEST TIME INTO THE TEAM DYNAMIC
Some of my clients are working to figure out the CEO role as their organization is changing. Many of these leaders find themselves challenged with stepping into a new role OR a familiar role in a rapidly changing organization.
For example, if you are a company founder, at some point you have done everything in the organization — from sales to delivery to finance – and then you’ve grown a team to take over key areas. One day you’ve grown into a CEO role leading a team of leaders and you now must figure out how that role is defined.
My experience is not limited to working with founder CEOs who have grown into the role, although many have. I work with first-time CEOs promoted or recruited from other functional areas. And long tenured CEOs that realize what got them here won’t get them there.
The question sounds the same, “What should I be doing as the CEO?” My answer and advice are always the same: You have three to five primary responsibilities. The first two are non-negotiable. 1) You are the team’s Head Coach. 2) You own the organization’s culture.
You are responsible for your team.
It might sound obvious, but many leaders could use the reminder: You are not above the team just because you have a different spot on the org chart. As the Chief Executive, you are responsible for the development and performance of every person on your leadership team. And, you own the organization’s culture.
You cannot abdicate these key responsibilities to someone else.
You make sure that the standards and accountability for high performance and a healthy culture are being worked on all the time. You, not somebody else, need to be involved in activities like vision and strategy communication, leadership team accountability, and company culture. Including the critical first step in onboarding new team members, new employee orientation.
You set the tone and model what is expected in your organization.
Striking the right balance
The third key responsibility for CEOs is to have adequate time invested externally. The good work on coaching your leadership team and driving company culture will keep your focus internal, unless you intentionally work with your key customers and partners as well. The significant risk of being too internally focused is the erosion of your feel for the market, the opportunities, the vision and strategy work. This is the critical CEO work of seeing the field.
Without the right balance you could hinder the ability to pivot and lead the company toward a new opportunity. You risk being unaware and unprepared, having lost the edge that comes with the challenge of engaging internal and external resources.
What is the right balance? If you spend too much time internally, you will be less effective long term. And, conversely, if you spend too much time externally, you will lose the connections to your team and/or your culture. You risk losing your business.
You’ll wake up one day and it won’t be your company.
If your long-term objective is to grow a healthy organization, then there is an approach beyond a set of tools or a formula. A way that meets you where you are, works with you to discover where you need to be, and customizes a plan to get there.
That is the way to sustain growth in a rapidly changing environment. Each leader is different. There is not a one size fits all approach. While many principles are consistent, the leaders that will win consistently over time are the ones thinking things like “How do I coach my team?” “How do I balance the CEO priorities?” “ How do I trust my team to do things that I have been very good at doing?
The CEO asking those questions understands the weight of the team leader role. I want to engage with the CEO who says “I am responsible to develop this team” – it is a mindset and challenge that is not well served with templates and agendas alone.
The Risk
Let’s say the CEO hires a COO or some other title to run the business for them. The CEO hands team management off to that person. And the CEO quickly loses the company culture!
If your goal is to sell off the company, this approach might be fine.
But usually when I see a CEO bring in someone to run the company, it quickly becomes a case of the absent CEO handing the company over to the “real” CEO.
My most successful clients work on being the coach. They are the coach.
THE “I HIRED SMART FOLKS” ARGUMENT
How many times have you heard (or said) “well, I hired really smart, expensive people – why can’t they just do it? Isn’t that why I hired them?”
This is a valid point. You did hire smart people to lead functional areas. The role of the CEO is to get those smart people to work together, as an aligned, healthy team. They can’t do that on their own. Building a high performing team requires a leader that is focused on doing just that, leading the team.
What happens when you decide to become – or not become — the team leader?
We would learn a lot by listing out some of the risks of not addressing the question:
- My point of view is that without healthy teams, we do not have healthy organizations
- Organizations that are not healthy can’t adapt and grow sustainably. They waste a lot of time and energy.
- These workplaces become the offices, sales teams, factories, and retail stores where people don’t want to work and where they are disengaged
It is all a cycle of connected results of poor or absent team leadership.
My mission is to help companies be healthy—by helping the leadership team grow a better organization. When my clients work on this by really putting balanced leadership into practice, I hear great things when I ask, “so, how is your team doing?”
Like many things in life, the leadership challenge is not static: the playing field keeps changing. If you are just assuming the CEO role, either as an internal promotion or external hire, you must figure out the team thing. And, for me, it is either a role you have adopted and embraced, or it is one that you are in the process of adopting and embracing!
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Contact Capricorn Leadership
As leaders, we are constantly challenged to grow. Make a difference in your life, the lives of your employees, and take your company to the next level.
To find out more, contact Rom LaPointe.