Inside the executive brain: What CEOs are thinking about
Being a senior business leader can be pretty lonely. When you’re awake at night worrying about the state of the world, do you wonder what your peers are fretting about? When you see your boss pacing in her office, do you try to imagine what’s on her mind? Part of being a successful senior executive is projecting strength and calm even when you’re uncertain. That sometimes makes it difficult to know whether you’re alone in your concerns.
Fortunately, sometimes there are tools to help us learn what leaders and CEOs are thinking about. For example, Spencer Stuart, a leading executive search firm, recently published the results of its recent survey of over 2,000 CEOs and board directors. The focus was on how these leaders navigate uncertainty, and the findings were thought-provoking. Rather than focusing on global topics like AI or political upheaval, the leaders’ three top concerns were:
Optimizing company culture
Understanding changing workforce dynamics
Attracting and keeping top talent
Culture change starts with senior leaders
I was especially interested in some of the findings about company culture. Although most leaders believe they are working hard on the culture, only half the employees agreed.
The survey found that to make culture change a shared reality, one of the key ingredients is a shared language. I saw this years ago when I was a consultant to a global retail company. The leaders emphasized a shared language; they even had a company glossary of the terms they used. This ensured that people had a common understanding of the changes they were making, and the leaders were able to quickly drive massive innovation.
Another key to successful culture change has to do with who is seen to be driving the initiative. A human resources department serves many valuable functions, but in my experience, real culture has to be driven from the top. The Spencer Stuart survey found that for culture change to be effective, senior leadership teams must visibly take responsibility for the changes and model the new behaviors that reflect those changes.
Find what matters to your talent and figure out new rewards
The survey found that most employees felt less committed to their organizations than in the past. This makes attracting and retaining top talent more challenging than ever. How can leaders balance providing the flexibility and benefits that employees want with the requirement for them to work hard, long, and well?
The survey found the key was identifying what matters most to employees and then consistently providing those elements in the employee experience. And if a company is using a hybrid work model, it’s essential to develop new ways of rewarding, developing, and managing people.
Another common finding was that many CEOs feared their organization was “sluggish.” I have frequently heard this concern lately in the companies I work with. Again, this may be connected to the challenge of giving people the schedule flexibility they want while simultaneously requiring a sense of urgency and commitment to top-quality work output.
The survey suggested two keys to resolving this dilemma:
First, senior leaders must communicate frequently about each person’s role in achieving business outcomes.
Second, driving successful change depends on breaking down silos and reducing bureaucracy. From the most-senior leaders to the brand-new, first-time employees, everyone needs to be committed to the “us,” not just the “me.”
If you’d like to know more about what senior leaders are concerned about and how to address those issues, contact me at ggolden@gailgoldenconsulting.com.
