In a recent op-ed piece, David Brooks cites various research indicating that most CEOs’ success is due to their execution and organizational abilities. These abilities translate into specific skills, such as attention to detail, persistence, efficiency and analytic diligence. Other significant qualities include emotional stability and conscientiousness.
Brooks also states that researchers found that strong ‘people skills’ correlate loosely or NOT AT ALL (my emphasis) with success as a CEO. Those strong people skills include characteristics such as being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague and a great communicator. Extroversion, agreeableness and openness to new experiences also failed to correlate to CEO success.
I have worked with several CEOs, and I don’t necessarily agree that they excel at the first group of skills and are deficient in the second. The CEOs with whom I have worked are an amalgam of traits in both categories. However, the one trait they all have exhibited is that of accomplishment through persistence.
I have also observed that attention to detail, far from being a positive trait, can become an overused negative characteristic. Carried to an extreme, such detail-oriented executives micromanage. Worse still, they can dip down two or three levels in the organization to ask subordinates’ subordinates’ subordinates to drop everything and take on another detailed assignment. Such an action, of course, is more than attention to detail — it is ‘scatter shot’ and disorganized management.
Regardless of the accuracy of the research Brooks cites, it raises provocative questions regarding the type of coaches CEOs and other leaders should choose to help them get the results they want. Should they select a former CEO, who has gotten things done through all that persistence and determination? Or should they work with a behavioral coach who has a clinical background and can pinpoint obstacles that may combine the psychological, operational and interpersonal?
I’m not sure of the answer, and I would love to hear from you coaches who are former CEOs. I know you’re out there! Would you share your stories of successes with clients (and, if you feel comfortable, share your failures as well)? I’d also like to know if you think folks like me, who have clinical backgrounds, provide value when we coach CEOs.
Finally, do you agree that Brooks’ latter bucket of ‘people skills,’ such as extroversion, openness to new experience, and perhaps even emotional intelligence and empathy, are of little value to leaders?
Of all the traits in Brooks’ latter bucket, I’d opine that the only one listed that is essential for CEOs is “openness to new experiences.” The very trait itself defines what it means to lead. Other than the customary R&D division, which mission it is to be experimental by design and demand, the person at the top is required to lead the charge and bushwack into territory where no person has strode before. It was admirable years ago; but it is required in today’s business climate.
Between “openness to new experiences” and “persistence” (assuming the CEO possesses intelligence and business acumen), the other traits can be relegated to competencies that c-level subordinates and senior/middle-managers must master. Don’t misunderstand, it’d be ideal for the organization if the CEO possesses the full monty, but if nothing else he or she MUST be both bushwacker and have unwavering persistence.
As for which coach, or which coaching style, makes the more effective impact (or elicits the more measurable response) — that depends on the leader being coached. There are those whose arrogance and ego will tolerate advice only from those who’ve walked in similar shoes. Conversely, other top leaders may be more responsive to a methodical staging of their expected behavior based on contracts and agreed outcomes. But I would not expect anyone who has risen to this level or position in any corporate enterprise or organization — and who presumably possesses some if not most of Brooks’ proferred traits from both buckets — to allow their behavior to be shaped too markedly simply because we’ve now paired the meat powder closer to the bell.
It is not surprising that ‘people skills’ do not correlate with CEO success. They are employed to get positive results, regardless of whether their subordinates are abused and exhausted or inspired and energetic.
The type of coach chosen probably depends on the ‘people skills’ of the coach.
We disagree with Brooks on ‘people skills.’ Great leaders get results and leave the people they work with inspired and energetic.
I haven’t read Brooks’ opinion piece but I can get the jest of it from the posting and the two comments. First, I note that the post and the comments don’t really agree with one another. In fact, they all seem to take this topic into far ranging fields. However, I tend to agree with the poster here. From my experience the CEOs and Executive VPs are not your ‘best executors’. The are not always the ones that demonstrate functional prowess. I mean, simply look at the career path of CEOs. Nardelli leaves GE and heads up Home Depot. The previous CEO from Southland Corporation goes to head up Blockbuster, and then to Pearl Eye Centers. Do you think its because these guys knew more about these businesses than ALL of the people who worked at these companies long before the CEO jumped ship? Of course not. These are political lions. I’m not saying they have great people skills, I would suggest that they lack the humilty and sincerity for that. They are political people. They conjole, persuade, charm . . . manipulate. They have a resume and can exploit it. They surround themselves with ‘yes-people’ and preach how important dissent is, while surreptitiously expunging the inner circle of any dissenters. So, I think Jim is correct in this case. As stated by other responders, coaching provides some particular challenges because these folks are notoriously tone-deaf.
I am going to take a different tack than John P. did in his excellent post. I need to remind myself that there are thousands of CEOs across the country, and tens of thousands across the world. So I don’t want to generlaize too broadly in my thoughts. I respect the research and agree with much of its findings. As I think back on CEOs of companies I worked for (and considering I am one myself now), many of those traits mentioned were present in these individuals. If there is no correlation then, to people skills and success in the CEO world, then I suggest it may be due to many CEOs settling for good, versus great. Not to be trite with that phrase, but when success is measured at the CEO position by return to shareholder, which it is in the vast majority of companies, then what is the motivation to reach a little deeper and become highly skilled in human behavior? I suggest it is the exceptional CEO who is not satisfied with just being an excellent strategist and financial analyst. It is the rare one who wants to be excellent as a communicator, coach, influencer, mentor, motivator as well. After all, that is asking a lot of anyone, right? So as coaches, we would always love the opportunity to work with a CEO who is willing to be challenged, provoked, and encouraged to develop these skills as well. But I believe that for us, these assignments will be just as rare as the CEO willing to tackle them.
please go to blog post on July 4th for a comment from CEO Peter Mattoon
I will comment on all your comments this week. Thank you again for your input!
Wonderful stuff. Going to take some time to examine the site!!