Dare to be a CEO who hires Challengers

Chief executive officers reach their position through a variety of paths, and with diverse skills. Their core strength might lie in finance, engineering, law, or in a set of amorphous talents that led them to create a product or service that found a market and allowed them to step from management to leadership. That doesn’t necessarily mean they understand marketing strategy or a customer journey map.

Few newly minted CEOs have actually been groomed for the job, either by laddering up through the corporate ranks or obtaining an MBA, and what got them to the top may not be what they require to lead their company to the next level. In some cases, they need to be brave enough to shift their perception of their own strengths, surrender some of their responsibilities, and build a team filled with diverse talents.

A case in point: There’s a story I like about a singularly talented serial entrepreneur whose nascent company was exploding. He’d taken the company public and its stock price had risen, and risen again, but this was a burgeoning consumer packaged goods organization and his background was in technology. When he discovered his CMO was canvassing for a sales lead, the CEO was puzzled. He had already put in place some contracts to supply major wholesalers; why did he need a dedicated sales team as well? He simply hadn’t considered how to get the products out of the warehouse and into stores, and then generate the demand to pull the product off store shelves. He didn’t realize that tech is an orange; CPG is an apple. Their marketing and sales channels and approaches are materially different.

Hire smarter

It’s a stark example of a very successful leader not understanding what it would take to keep his company successful. He would’ve done well to consider the words of US President Franklin Roosevelt: “I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.”

Human nature influences us to stay with what we know, and to surround ourselves with like-minded people. That might work when you’re driving hard for a single goal, like attaining that next tranche of funding; but, when you need to focus on a broader vision and balance the interests of the rest of your management team, your board, your employees, your customers, and maybe shareholders as well, different perspectives are needed. You need people around you who can feed your idea and your direction, but also expand on them.

You need to bring in diverse opinions, and skills and experience that complement yours. What you’re really facing is making the transition between management and true leadership. The latter is about putting the right people around you, increasing your organization’s capabilities, and not just duplicating yourself.

Be open

In essence, it’s about being brave enough to step outside your comfort zone, being open to debate, and opening up the C-suite to different perspectives. You need to hire people who are smarter than you and augment your capabilities, rather than simply replicating them.

Making a move like that requires some humility and the ability to be open, to be a listener, and to make the transition from being a doer to someone who empowers people and gets behind them.

Investing in the people who can take you where you couldn’t go on your own can yield huge rewards.