What a waste when bright, competent senior leaders who report to the CEO hang back, and fail to lead their company assertively. When they tiptoe around the CEO and wait for permission to take charge.
Last week I ranted a bit about how CEOs shouldn’t listen to the “time-wasting” bad rap that meetings have, but instead should make their meetings powerful, where they leverage the collective wisdom and experience of their top teams. This week I’m enumerating specific techniques to make meetings produce real results.
I came across this article last week in the Wall Street Journal titled, “Where’s the Boss? Trapped in a Meeting” that made it sound like CEOs weren’t productive and spent large amounts of time in meetings, at lunches and traveling, with as little as six hours per week working solo.
Change is a constant in business, but new modalities have upped the ante. Today’s CEO requires new skills and approaches to deal with these four new challenges.
After five years as a top-level consultant, here are my top five questions for a CEO. But the path to answering “yes” to all five questions can be a long and winding one.
Chaos at the top of an organization is a recipe for disaster. Learn about the three types of unpredictable leader, underlying causes for the behavior, four paths toward resolution and methods of coping if it’s your boss who’s unpredictable.
Many executives and companies have a built in limiting factor, just like the governor on a gas pedal. Here’s how you can prevent micro-management at the highest levels from stifling your growth.
High maintenance employees sap all the energy from team and upper management. Here are some examples of the breed and suggestions for resolution of the problem.
Loyalty to your employees is admirable, particularly when they’ve served the company well. But what happens when their performance slips? Do you have the toughness to put company loyalty first?
What could ever be wrong with a strong, growing top line? What would be wrong with running a lean company? The answer: Too much work to do and not enough people or resources to execute it well.
Robert Sher is founding principal of CEO to CEO, a consulting firm of former chief executives that improves the leadership infrastructure of midsized companies seeking to accelerate their performance. He was chief executive of Bentley Publishing Group from 1984 to 2006 and steered the firm to become a leading player in its industry (decorative art publishing).