I was a new young leader of a non-profit focused on leadership development. We were conducting a week-long leadership retreat in a remote community. A mentor of mine, Brian, was one of the speakers. Brian has many years of executive experience and is a respected community leader. He is one of those people who just seem to “know what to do.” Bringing him onto the retreat team helped lend it a level of credibility that I didn’t have.

The retreat had gone well. The speakers were diverse. The topics were interesting and challenging. People were interested and engaged. But on the last night, an incredibly intense set of disputes broke out within two different groups of participants. The specifics of the disputes had to do with issues outside of the retreat. Perhaps it was time spent in the close proximity of the retreat. Or the questions we were exploring. But something seemed to trigger long avoided issues.

Brian and I were sharing an apartment on the retreat location. Late into that night, we received a steady stream of calls and visitors who were all shaken up by the various disputes. I wasn’t sure how to respond and was beginning to feel overwhelmed. When the last person left our apartment, I looked over at Brian. He was typically the person to know how to navigate a situation like this. He caught my glance and said, “I’m glad that I’m not in charge right now!”

It was my retreat. It was my problem.

Different Than Expected

People use different titles to describe the box at the top of an organizational chart: Chief Executive Officer, President, Founder, Executive Director, Managing Partner, etc. Some take on enough titles to fill up a business card. Others get clever and make up new names like “Chief Cheerleader” or “Chief Troublemaker.” Whatever your title is, you are at the pointy part of your organizational pyramid. For the sake of convenience, I’ll use the term “CEO.”

Certain people aspire to this role. They enjoy leadership. They gravitate towards the topics typically dealt with at this level. Or they might simply be attracted to the power or position. For others, this kind of leadership is like a game of “hot potato.” They got stuck with it. They’d rather do anything else but they feel that they can’t.

As a coach and consultant, I meet new CEOs all of the time. They might be brand new to the position. Or just brand new to this particular organization. Either way, they tend to be smart, motivated, and interesting people. They tend to deal with the same five challenges.

In my new book The Successful New CEO, I do a deep dive into the common challenges faced by leaders and the core principles and skills that will guide them through. Here are five of those challenges and ideas for how to deal with them.

The Top 5 Challenges for New CEOs (and solutions)

• Too busy working to get everything done: By far, the most common issue that new CEOs deal with is feeling overwhelmed and too busy. The answers to this usually come down to getting better at:
  • Identifying your priorities
  • Getting good at saying, “No”
  • Giving authority away

• Herding cats, chickens, and turtles: Lack of alignment. Many teams and organizations are either so informally structured, siloed, or lacking in accountability that the sum is less than the parts. This is not difficult to correct but takes a steady hand at the wheel. It includes:
  • Clarifying roles, responsibilities, and expectations
  • Defining a unifying vision and focusing all work towards it
  • Holding yourself and others to account for progress and behavior

• The pyramid isn’t so pointy after all: Unclear roles, responsibilities, and expectations. As mentioned above, this can be an organizational issue. But more often than expected, this is true for the CEO role. Owners/shareholders/the board may have never really defined expectations and scope of authority. Your leadership team may have its own ideas about your job – ascribing more (or less) authority to your position than you think is appropriate. Resolve this by:
  • Clarify above: Make sure you are on the same page with the people you report to
  • Clarify below: After you’ve clarified above, clarify roles, responsibilities, and expectations with your team

• When you no longer know everything: The expert’s dilemma. Many CEOs are highly skilled and excellent in their fields: doctors, attorneys, engineers, etc. But professional or technical skills rarely translate into leadership skills. You may find yourself overestimating your ability. Or not wanting to act unless you’ve developed expertise. Either approach is a problem. You can address this by:
  • Learning just enough to lead your experts and track performance
  • Get good at asking questions – not knowing all the answers
  • Facilitate everyone else’s success

• What worked there won’t work here: Fundamental attribution error. Fundamental attribution error is when someone overestimates individual choice or ability and underestimates situational or contextual influences. This is commonly seen when a leader underestimates the degree to which previous success was due to circumstances outside of their leadership. A common example is someone who had a leadership role within a Fortune 500 company (with well-defined roles, systems, processes, and support structures) entering a CEO role in a smaller company that lacks the structure and support above.
  • Accept that you are not immune to this kind of error
  • Stay curious about issues and situations – don’t jump to conclusions
  • Practice humility
  • Cultivate both situational awareness and emotional intelligence

The Rest of the Story

When we all met for our final morning together, the participants trickled in late. They were quiet and avoided eye contact. As far as I could figure out, the divisive issues hadn’t been resolved. The conflicts were still raw and open. The few who spoke were clearly “pretending normal” and trying to move one as if nothing had happened.

I got up and addressed the issue. I didn’t know all the details, but I acknowledged the conflicts and that they were still unresolved. Then I reminded them of the similar values they claimed they shared. I encouraged them to stay true to those values – even as they struggled with each other.

It worked. It didn’t make the conflict go away, but by naming the elephant in the room – and aligning everyone towards common values – they began to see a path forward. One that they might be able to imagine continuing on together. This event catalyzed a shift my in professional life which ultimately led towards my first book, Conflict and Leadership.

But that’s my story. If you are a new CEO (or even if you’ve been doing this for a while), you are running into challenges that seem insurmountable. No one can possibly know the specific answers you’ll need. But the principles and skills necessary for success? Those aren’t as complicated. Learn more by picking up your copy of The Successful New CEO or download a free chapter now!

Take good care,

Christian

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