CEO Excellence: What Makes a Good CEO?

What makes a good CEO? What makes a great one? Why do CEOs fail? There are so many books, articles, podcasts, webinars, and more besides examining the qualities that make CEOs or other executives successful. 

I have long thought that there is no silver bullet. Having worked with some truly inspirational leaders and some who were, in my view, wholly unsuited to leadership, my musings have often extended to what exactly is that makes senior leaders more or less effective.

A glance at the web on any given day will appear to show us the answer. Take this article from the World Economic Forum on the 14 things successful people do before breakfast or this Business Insider article on the 14 things successful people do before breakfast (the number 14 is consistent at least) or  What successful people do before breakfast which this time has three and many subsets. The simple fact, though, is surely that different people do different things before breakfast and some of those may work really well for one person, but not for another. 

Another point I notice about these kinds of lists is that they focus mainly on activity or the lack of it. Don’t turn on your mobile in bed, run 10k, write 2,000 words of your novel, write a to-do list of at least 132 things. Do, do, do. It’s also the case that many of these sorts of articles are really about opinions, what worked for the author or a couple of well-known leaders. 

With this in mind, I recently turned to ‘CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets that Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller & Vikram Malhotra.’ (2022). Given my tendency to ignore titles with numbers in them, I would have let it go. However, I had read a book Keller wrote with Bill Schaninger,  ‘Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large Scale Change’ (2019) and been impressed by two things. One, the amount of data they brought to the table, as you might expect from McKinsey inmates. And it was impressive; some 5 million data points drawn from 2,000 companies in 60 countries over a 15-year period. Secondly, they didn’t suggest a one-size-fits-all 17 things before breakfast approach. Secondly, it guides us to lead change within our organization and cultural contexts. That I liked. 

‘CEO Excellence’ is also data-rich, looking at 24000 public companies in the US. That may not be your, or mine these days, cultural context but they highlight six things which any senior leader would do well to think about. Of course, I know six is a number! 

In essence, the authors examined mind-sets. Mind-sets in a context where ‘failure’ is normal ‘Thirty percent of Fortune 500 CEOs don’t make it to three years, and forty per cent of new CEOs are in some ways failing 18 months into the role. It’s probably true in less ruthless worlds too. 

They make a profoundly simple statement upfront. The role is more about spinning plates than looking in vain for a silver bullet. We need several mindsets and attributes simultaneously, like sailing a boat or running a marathon. Alas, there is no simple, one thing, two things that we just need to do to fix things. There may be no specific activity at all, just a series of ways in which we need to focus and manage across a complex set of skills.

So, what are these Six Mindsets?  

1. It is about having the right mindset in terms of setting directions. Do we see challenges or opportunities? If we look at a world where no one has a particular product do we see that word in terms of no demand or endless opportunities? They suggest we need to be bold, and courageous in our direction setting.
2. We need to align organisations. Bring people together, pay attention to culture and behaviour. ‘Treat soft stuff as hard’ is their plea. 
3. Mobilise and focus on your thought leaders, cement them together and point them in the same direction.  Make an intentional choice to shape the psychology of the team. 
4. Engage your board openly and with honesty. Don’t try and manage them but see them as an asset, a team to support you on your journey
5. Engage and connect with your stakeholders, customers, and consumers. Don’t focus on activities but clearly explain the why of what you do. 
6. This surely is true of any leadership role, avoid doing what is needed and focus on what only you can do (best).  Otherwise, delegate. And then delegate again. You need time to achieve a balcony view of the organisation, the space it occupies, its partners and so on. If you busy yourself with activities, you won’t move to where you need to be. 

Now, if like me you tend to be sceptical at times, you can raise many objections. What if things are really bad? What if everyone is pulling in different directions? Suppose my board is composed of warring factions and mammoth egos? What if, what if? The beauty of this book is that it suggests that it shouldn’t matter if we can adopt the right mindset consistently. 

As well as those Six Mindsets, the authors suggest that rather than thinking in terms of a matrix, organisations and leaders should think of a helix (the double-stranded shape of DNA). So we set up different reporting structures for different work streams. Rather like some consultancy firms, including HAS. 

Lots of good food for thought here and I would recommend the book to anyone in a senior leadership position.