Good and Bad CEO Traits

No body's perfect, but...

One of my advisory clients asked me recently to describe some good and bad traits of a CEO. Rather than do a bunch of research at HBS and regurgitate the B-School definition of a good CEO, I wanted to give you my personal lived experience.

To build this list of traits, I reflected on 12 CEOs with whom I have direct experience. I also reflected on my own strengths and weaknesses. I’ve worked with/for some very talented CEOs. And like everyone else, I’ve worked with some CEOs for whom the role was a “poor fit.” 😉 Most of my experience is in early to high-growth startups, so YMMV if you’re at a giant, Fortune 100 company.

CEO Good Traits

There are 3 broad categories of skills for senior leaders: vision, leadership, and execution. All aspects of the job can fit into these big buckets. Notice that I’m not talking about the mechanical skills of the job. I’m talking about traits and behaviors of a strong CEO. Here’s the good CEO version.

Vision

• Ability to clearly articulate a vision for the product and the company.

• Ability to sell this vision to everyone: investors, customers, leaders, and staff.

• Ability to rally people around the vision.

Leadership

• Possessing a growth mindset and demonstrating that mindset to others regularly. This includes giving and receiving feedback and genuinely acting upon received feedback.

• Consistently demonstrating personal humility and empathy towards others.

• Operating with intense honesty and integrity--with yourself, your founders, your shareholders, your colleagues, your staff, and the public.

Execution

• Ability to roll up your sleeves and get stuff done. Every mechanical skill you’re thinking about that’s not on my list likely fits into this bucket.

• Possessing enough self-awareness such that you surround yourself with people who are strong in the areas you are weak.

• Ability to project strong opinions and be decisive when it's needed while also knowing when to lean back and let others make decisions.

• Operating with a bias towards transparency in your thought processes and decision-making. There is very little in a company that needs to be secret.

CEO Bad Traits

Obviously, the absence or the opposite of the traits above fit into the bad traits list, but let me provide some specific bad trait examples that I’ve seen CEOs fall into.

Vision

• Spending all of one's time on selling a vision while actively avoiding the slog of execution.
  
  Why? Vision is easy. Sorry folks, it’s true. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Visioning is a dopamine hit that most of us (myself included) really enjoy. Yes, you have to examine your vision regularly, but execution is where the money is made and lost.

  
  I know one CEO who was phenomenal at vision, and they could sell anything to anyone. But they didn’t understand the cost of execution and consistently insisted that everything should be easy and quick. So the company chased vision after vision without ever completing execution. That didn’t end well for the company and it burned out an impossible number of people along the way.

Leadership

• Tone deafness in all of its forms: lack of empathy, lack of understanding of how decisions impact people, lack of self-awareness, etc.
  

  Why? I feel like this is obvious because there are so many examples in all of our professional lives. Just think of the worst high-profile leader you know. They always have a high degree of tone deafness, sometimes to a pathological level. People who serve under leaders like this rarely last long.
  
  There’s even a selfish reason why tone-deafness is a bad trait for a CEO. CEOs often live in a filter bubble because the people who immediately surround them often kiss their ass. Sometimes it’s not even intentional ass-kissing or politics but rather a simple desire to please the CEO and be perceived as valuable. But being surrounded by politicians and sycophants is the Achilles Heel of any leader because it means you don’t get good information about how your org is running. It’s especially pernicious if you’re a CEO and you can’t see what’s really happening in your company. Companies have failed when the CEO doesn’t know what’s going on.
  

  The opposite of tone deafness is empathy and self-awareness.
  

• Arrogance / Elitism

  
  Why? Very few people like an arrogant person, of course. But why Elitism? Elitism is trickier because it’s often an accidental trait. CEOs sit in the top seat and already have the power balanced in their favor. So, when a CEO also acts elite, intentionally or not, it quickly ruins the dynamic of the senior leadership team.
  
  There’s another awkward truth. CEO are often in better financial shape than most people in the company. Sometimes that’s because the CEO is a repeat founder who had a successful exit in a previous company. Sometimes it’s the result of a compensation package commensurate with the top job in the company. Sometimes it’s because the CEO comes from a wealthy family. Whatever the reason, in addition to the power imbalance, there’s often a financial imbalance. If you then add elitist behavior to the mix, you end up with a CEO that most people will not relate to, respect, or follow.

Execution

• Inability to focus and commit to a direction.

  
  Why? I mentioned above the example of a CEO who did not understand the cost of execution and kept chasing a new vision before completing the previous one. Successful company execution requires focus. So, if you are a CEO who struggles with focus, seek out some treatment and surround yourself with focused executives who help keep your pivoting in check.

• Being weak in operations.

  
  Why? Ok, you made it this far, and I put the most controversial bullet point last. Don’t worry. Some people are big-picture thinkers and some people dive effortlessly into the minutia. It’s difficult to be both. Many CEOs are in the role because they’re excellent at building and selling a vision. However, speaking for myself as a veteran of many startup companies, the phrase “Genius is 1 Percent Inspiration and 99 Percent Perspiration” rings painfully true. You need good operations to win.
  
  So if you’re not strong in operations, get a number 2 in command who is, like a President or COO. Steve Jobs was weak in operations (and many other things on this list), but he had Tim Cook.
  
  The most important nugget is this: CEOs who don't understand the cost of operations will fail to understand the investments required for effective strategies.

Final Thoughts

I’ve focused this newsletter on the top job, but Leadership is a Team Sport. It’s too easy to point a finger at the CEO and say that they are failing. In reality, the entire leadership team is responsible for the success of the company, the well-being of the employees, and the responsibilities of the company to the broader society.

So even if you’re not a CEO, this list of traits applies to the entire senior team, and I believe you should self-assess as a team regularly.