Leadership is the difference between success and failure in your organization. As a CEO, C-Suite member, and/or executive, you set the example. Whether you like it or not, people in your company are looking to you for what they should do.
Leadership is a part of your title. You earned this title and you’re off to a good start. At the same time, leadership for a CEO and executive like you is so much more than a title. It’s a mindset, behavior, and a daily action. It’s about practicing what you preach, following through on your company’s brand promise, and living the company values.
When effective leadership is implemented, the rewards are genuinely incredible. Building an effective leadership runway for the success of your company to take off is difficult in the short-run, and easy in the long-run. Disregarding the power of leadership is easy in the short-run, and very difficult in the long-run.
In this post, we will talk about the top ten leadership skills for CEOs and Executives.
Engaging With Your Team
Whether the structure of your company is flat, hierarchical, or somewhere in-between, you need to engage with your team. This is absolutely crucial on so many levels. It’s easy to sit behind your desk and computer screen all day, but that will limit the effectiveness of your leadership.
First off, you need to know what’s actually going on in the day-to-day of your business. While you can learn a lot from your direct reports about the reality of what’s happening, nothing can replace going to see the reality for yourself.
Perhaps one of the core values of your company is integrity, yet you notice a lot of gossip and backstabbing taking place. Perhaps one of the core values of your company is openness and transparency, yet you notice a lot of people wearing masks and not acting naturally.
Engaging with your team is a practical process. Go walk the work floor and talk to people, including the specialists and the juniors. Invite people to lunches, both one-on-one and group lunches. Grab coffee with your colleagues. Show interest in their lives by asking about their challenges both at work and at home. Influence starts with showing authentic care for others.
A strategy that works well for fostering a safe workplace is to hold a group meeting. I’m talking about meeting not only with your leadership team, but also with different people across your organization. In this meeting, I encourage you to hold a brainstorming session where people share ideas to improve your organization (you can also make the brainstorming be about a specific challenge or situation).
In this group meeting of whatever length you desire, no idea is “bad”. Everything is noted, either on a notepad, flip chart, whiteboard, or on the computer. Not every idea is going to be implemented, but when you take note of everything shared, the people feel valued. And when your team members feel valued, that’s when you’ll get the most out of them (helping them to reach their potential) while achieving the goals of the organization.
In this group meeting, in addition to a brainstorming session, allow people to bring up other concerns. What’s going well for them? And what do they feel like can be improved in the organization? This is where you hear their direct concerns and possibly identify root causes of dysfunction and other types of bottlenecks in the organization. By directly engaging with people in your company, you figure out where the incongruence is.
These group meetings, when held in the right way and at the right time, foster psychological safety. People feel heard and acknowledged. It helps to prevent silos. And you become more visible as a leader. The benefits are excellent.
In the past, I worked for a dynamic company called Contractor Nation. The President of the organization took different people across the company out to lunch throughout the year at a top-notch restaurant. I got invited to a lunch with a group of people across the company. Many of the people at the lunch I hadn’t met before (they were in different departments). It acted as a phenomenal networking opportunity. It fostered teamwork. We also had a chance to speak openly and honestly with the President about some of our concerns, and he did a great job of answering them.
The lunch went for two hours! I actually remember thinking, is my boss going to wonder where I am? But I was with the President of the company, so all was good. I got back to the office at 2 pm feeling like a million bucks. I felt valued and respected. This is due to the strong leadership of the President.
Being a Servant Leader
As a leader of your organization, you are at the top. Some people get carried away with their leadership position by getting caught up in the consequences ego. But that is not for you.
As a leader, your purpose is to serve your colleagues and to facilitate high performance. This is challenging for a lot of leaders to understand. You are not a dictator who forces a single-minded approach on those who report to you.
To ensure that we keep this discussion holistic, I’d like to acknowledge something: there is nuance and balance to everything. Yes, there are times when you do need to make bold decisions and point out clear, unequivocal action. Being a servant leader does not mean you become someone who is submissive and mistreated by others. With that said, the point I’m making in this section is that, in my experience, leaders tend to skew more towards the ego side of things than to the servant side of things. So I’m emphasizing the servant leader mindset here because that’s what seems to be most lacking and missing in many leaders.
Here’s a clip from a workshop I gave in New York talking about the power of servant leadership:
Strategic Thinking: Aligning Behavior With Vision
One of the core leadership skills for CEOs and executives is to strategically align behavior with vision. As a leader, you are someone who is meant to put the pieces together and connect the dots.
You’ve prioritized employee engagement by getting to know your colleagues, listening to their concerns, and understanding the root causes of the challenges in your organization. And you’ve embraced the servant leader mindset. Now it’s time to get strategic.
Be clear on the vision of your company. What are the main goals? And what are the sub goals underneath each of those main goals? Where do you see your company in five, ten, twenty, and fifty years from now?
Once you’ve established clarity on that vision by embracing the input of your team and utilizing your own expertise, it’s time to congruently align the daily behavior of your colleagues with that vision.
This is something a lot of CEOs miss when it comes to leadership skills. They are mostly clear on the vision, but they haven’t aligned the daily actions of the team members with that long-term goal. One of the root causes of this often has to do with the CEO and executives not fully understanding the extent of the messy challenges team members are facing. This is when people get overwhelmed because they are working on too many priorities at once, constantly putting out short-term fires and not putting energy into the long-term initiatives.
There’s a lot to talk about here and this point alone is worth an entire discussion. One method of working that is effective is the agile approach. Feel free to look this method up on Google and YouTube if you’re not familiar with it. The agile approach allows you to constantly adjust and refine your processes in a way that works towards the most important goals of the organization. That way you are simultaneously getting what needs to be done in the short-run while making sure you are staying true to the essence of your organization.
The agile approach is one idea among many. I shared it here to spark a conversation and get your creative juices flowing. Find some structure, method, approach, and/or process that guides your team in a way that combines today’s actions with tomorrow’s goals.
Please don’t misunderstand: there are often going to be short-term fires, challenges, and issues to address. I’m not saying to disregard the short-term. Your company needs some kind of money coming in so that you can address overhead like salaries, operational costs, and other miscellaneous expenses. What I’m saying is while you continue facing daily challenges, make sure there’s some room in your schedule to stay focused on the ultimate vision. Put time, energy, and effort into those things that are important, but not urgent. Your future self will thank you.
When daily behavior is totally misaligned with vision, your colleagues will start to struggle. They’ll sense that something feels “off” and some may even start to look for other jobs. That’s why it’s so important to not only establish a powerful vision, but to lead your people towards that vision through daily habits, behavior, and actions.
When you put this into practice, profits will increase and your organization will flourish.
Empowering Others
Empowering others is connected to servant leadership and builds off the previous points. Give people responsibility. Trust them. Allow them room to make mistakes and grow.
Micromanaging is not usually effective. It’s more effective to be a hands-off coach and guide to your colleagues as you facilitate their leadership development.
Something I’ve noticed from some of my previous work experiences: leaders tend to give people very little slack in the beginning, and then they loosen that slack over time. I have empathy for this approach and I do understand why they feel the need to do this. Perhaps they’ve been burned in the past by a colleague who didn’t have integrity.
However, as your leadership mentor, I’d like to advocate a different approach for you. Start by giving your colleagues and employees lots of slack, and reduce that slack if need be.
Instead of starting off by giving your colleagues little slack and then lengthening that slack over time, I’m encouraging you to do the opposite. Here’s why: if you don’t give someone a lot of slack in the beginning, your rockstar employees are going to feel limited and suffocated. It can be become a self-fulfilling prophecy: leaders don’t give slack because they’re afraid of poor performance, but when you micromanage talented performers they will start to perform poorly.
Remember that you hired them for a reason. Give them a chance to prove themselves! If they blow their chance for high performance with little to no supervision, then yes, you need to reduce that slack and start to keep a closer eye on them. But if they’re hitting their KPIs and achieving the goals of the organization, there’s no need to micromanage them.
My own experiences match with what we’re talking about here. I’ve been hired into leadership roles before, but it ended up being a struggle because of the authoritarian micromanagement from those above me in the hierarchy. I was hired on for my leadership skills, but I never had a chance to prove myself because I was constantly being told what to do and how to do it. I’m highly motivated and can always be counted on to meet deadlines and get the job done, and I really appreciate it when someone gives me the wiggle room to be the leader I was hired to be. I say this not to criticize the people I’ve worked with, as I know they were doing their best. I say this to point out that micromanagement is bad for performance and morale, especially for high performers.
To be clear: there are absolutely times when people need to be given little slack. Perhaps they’ve been bullying and mistreating others. Or maybe they missed some deadlines and have been giving a lackluster performance. Then go ahead and pull that slack in. Have those conversations with them, give them feedback, and see if they’re willing to change. If they continue performing poorly and hurting the organization, it may be time to consider letting them go and finding a better fit for your team.
Providing Resources
This is a simple yet powerful leadership skill for CEOs and executives. And it often gets lost in the shuffle during the onboarding process for new employees (and this applies to your colleagues who are already on the team as well).
What resources do your colleagues need to succeed? Is their computer functioning properly? Do they have access to training programs to improve their skills? Do they require a company phone or car? Is there a tool you can purchase that will help them to structure and do their job better?
These are crucial questions to ask regarding both new and existing colleagues. Your job is to bridge those gaps and fill those holes.
To be a bit blunt, it’s mind-blowing how often this is missed. I once worked for an organization where my company computer wasn’t functioning properly and consistently froze on important calls. I asked for my computer to be fixed, and it wasn’t made a priority by the company. I ended up having to use my own computer. It felt ridiculous that a multi-billion-euro corporation couldn’t provide me with a proper computer. I understand that their IT department was busy, but my bad computer made it extremely difficult to perform. This had nothing to do with my skills, and everything to do with a lack of resources.
Providing resources to your team is well worth the investment and will give them the runway they need to succeed in their role.
Being Vulnerable
Being vulnerable is about leading by example. It’s about fostering an environment of psychological safety. It’s about being human and showing your team that it’s OK to be open about their challenges.
Being vulnerable doesn’t mean you have to bare your soul to everyone if that’s not your preferred approach. It’s important to open up in the right way and at the right time. But I promise you that vulnerability will lead to increased connection and engagement. Your colleagues will feel safe taking off their masks and being fully themselves.
By getting up in front of your teams and your company as a whole and demonstrating vulnerability, you can literally shift the entire culture.
I’m honored to say I was featured on Forbes as an authentic leadership expert and author. Feel free to check out this article, where I talked about the importance of revealing your true self to your colleagues.
Letting Go of the Need for a Hidden Agenda
Hidden agendas are easy in the short-run and backfire in the long-run. Being transparent is challenging in the short-run and rewarding in the long-run.
It’s important to trust the right people. Keep your antenna out for people who give you a bad feeling or vibe. Full transparency isn’t the best course of action in every situation. But this leadership skill for CEOs and executives can be incredibly useful when used in the right situation.
Instead of hiding the challenges of the organization, be open about what’s happening. Enlist others in the process of making things better and give them a stake in the outcome. You’ll be amazed by what people can do when they feel truly involved and connected to the purpose of your company.
Uplifting and Encouraging Others
The authoritarian leaders out there don’t like this skill. But uplifting and encouraging others is one of the easiest ways to facilitate peak performance.
I’m not talking about hand holding here. If there’s a situation that calls for being direct, then say what you need to say. What I’m saying is that criticism doesn’t have to be your default approach and reaction to everything.
See and notice the good in your colleagues and your team. Don’t only focus on what’s wrong – also focus on what’s going well. When your colleagues feel appreciated, they will be incentivized to continue working hard.
We all have room for improvement. When you’re giving feedback to others, sandwich constructive feedback in-between praise. This helps the feedback to land much better with the person on the receiving end, as feedback can be scary for all of us.
As an example, let’s say you notice one of your colleagues consistently showing up several minutes late to meetings. For the sake of this hypothetical example, let’s refer to him as Billy. Start off by asking questions and seeing if there’s a root cause behind this (perhaps he’s overwhelmed with too many priorities or he has too many meetings back-to-back).
If you’ve investigated by asking questions and there doesn’t seem to be a clear reason why he’s late to meetings, here’s what you could say:
“Billy, we really appreciate your work here. We notice that you are especially good at contributing great ideas during strategy sessions. With that said, you have been late to several meetings and we’d like you to show up on time for future meetings. Is this something you could keep in mind for future reference? Your excel reports have been valuable and I look forward to seeing more of them.”
Being late to meetings doesn’t mean Billy is a bad person or bad colleague. It means he has room for improvement, and with a small adjustment the situation could be solved.
The goal here is to leave a colleague like Billy feeling uplifted and encouraged instead of demotivated. When you use feedback to only focus on the negative, you risk demotivating your colleagues.
Embracing Learning and Development
In addition to the previous skills, it’s important to be a leader who is a constant learner:
- Pay attention to the trends in your industry as well as what is happening in the economy as a whole.
- Make the effort to go to those industry-leading conferences to increase your knowledge while making new connections.
- Read books and articles in your chosen field.
- Have those conversations with your colleagues about developments and changes in your industry, even if it contradicts their existing perspective.
- Be confident enough to make decisions and humble enough to change your mind when provided with new information and data.
Become a lifelong learner. The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.
Making a Stand
This is a tip I picked up from Senator Chris Murphy, one of the experts I talked to and featured in my bestselling book The Power of Authentic Leadership. This leadership skill for CEOs and executives can be tricky, but when used appropriately it can be incredibly powerful.
When you make a stand at the wrong time, it can backfire. That’s why I talked earlier about engaging with your team and serving them, so that you can win their trust and start to influence them.
Once you’ve really gotten to know your team and understood the root challenges of the organization, there are still going to be people who disagree with you. This is unavoidable and a part of life at work, as everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
I encourage you to engage in a meditation and reflection process so that you can get in touch with your intuition. Once you’re connected to your truth and to what you know is best, combined with deeply understanding the challenges of your colleagues, that’s when it may be time to make a stand.
As a thoughtful leader, your goal is not to make people upset. But the truth is, you can’t please everyone. To reach the goals and vision you laid out to the key stakeholders, you may need to ruffle some feathers. This entails making difficult changes. It means challenging people to step outside of their comfort zones, even when they are initially resistant. It means letting people go who are hurting your organization. It means doing what you know is right even when others in your organization disagree with you.
The reality is that making a stand is hard and it will test you as a person and as a leader on several levels. But if you stick to your guns and what you know is best when faced with opposition, you’ll become a legend.
A Case Study of Leadership Skills for CEOs and Executives
To give you a real-life case study: I once worked closely with a CEO based in Illinois. I was her leadership advisor. Her name is Maryanne (this is shared with her permission). She felt like she wasn’t being true to herself in her work.
In this particular example, she was engaging with her team by listening to them and understanding their challenges. She embraced the servant leader mindset and she was actively making an effort to improve herself.
The key for her was becoming more vulnerable and then choosing to respectfully make a stand. This meant making the decision she thought was best, even if a few members of her leadership team didn’t fully agree.
When she put this into practice, the results were incredible. Maryanne felt happier and more connected to her work. Employee happiness scores went up and overall team engagement improved because Maryanne was bringing a different kind of energy to the workplace. In the words of Maryanne: “I started being true to myself instead of trying to be everything to everyone else. It made a huge difference and was life-changing.”
The irony here is that when Maryanne made a stand based on her values and convictions, she most effectively positioned herself as a leader who could help and serve her teammates.
Applying One of These Leadership Skills
Applying these leaderships skills for CEOs is a process that takes time. Be patient with yourself and don’t try to change everything at once. Instead, take one insight from this post and start applying it today. As you establish habits and action based on these principles, your company results will skyrocket. I’m looking forward to hearing about your success.
What was your favorite insight? Let me know what you think is the top leadership skill for CEOs and executives. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Jeff Davis is an award-winning author, most recently publishing The Power of Authentic Leadership: Activating the 13 Keys to Achieving Prosperity Through Authenticity. Connect with him on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter. For three free books (The Power of Authentic Leadership, Reach Your Mountaintop, and Traveling Triumphs) in exchange for being added to his email list, email his Executive Assistant at meg@jeffdspeaks.com. Learn more about his story on his About page and feel free to check out his author page on Amazon. Also feel free to contact Jeff directly via jeff@jeffdspeaks.com. What Jeff does best is sharing his work experiences in a way that adds real value to others. Consider bringing him to speak as a mental health, authentic leadership, and/or resiliency expert at your next event. He’s also available as an Executive Coach.
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