7 Reactivity Habits that Drive CEOs’ People Mad and Their Companies Bad

In the last edition of THE CEO ELEVATOR? I was talking about CEO reactivity, what it was and how it could manifest at work.?

Based on your messages and questions following this post I decided to delve a bit deeper into CEO reactivity and to bring you seven concrete examples of emotional, mental, and behavioral reactivity that can turn any team or company into chaos.?

Let’s dive in.?

Reactivity Habit Nr. 1: Random Ideas ?

From their vantage point, CEOs have a unique position to see the entire organizational system. Thus, they can generate new ideas about how the system could progress towards a better future with an incredible velocity.?

Should they, however, do it? And more – should they share their ideas out in the open without a proper consultation with their executive team and / or further stakeholders? Should they even bother to share an idea before they get a chance to validate its validity??

Here is the thing: a CEO’s words carry massive weight. It is so simple for people to take a CEO’s idea for a request and to start crackin’, hoping that they are acting on their CEO’s will.?

The outcome? More work, higher risk of burnout, resources spread far too thin, less chances of finishing things, confusion, and chaos. ?

Just because you have the luxury to sit in a vantage point from where ideas gush by themselves and just because you want to bring some of those ideas to life fast doesn’t mean that you need to share everything that is crossing your mind all the time.?

This relentless idea generation mental reactivity pattern is one of the most damaging across organizations and we can find it in corporate CEOs and in founders & CEOs alike.?

Reactivity Habit Nr. 2: Deception ??

This is yet another super damaging habit that can plague CEOs and eat deeply into a company’s culture.?

Being the CEO means that you are supposed to be successful all the time, right? And that the company you lead should be equally successful??

Well, what happens when the risk of failure is right around the corner??

This is the moment when numerous CEOs become only too eager to reach for deception to paint reality in better colors.

Such a habit can be devastating for an organization, as all buried dirt tends to resurface sooner or later. This habit is also one of the most damaging for a CEO’s career and reputation, for who would hire someone who cannot be trusted??

Reactivity Habit Nr. 3: Forceful Power Show-Offs ???

Unfortunately, this is what we saw a lot in the three years since the pandemic receded in terms of compulsory return-to-office mandates: an endless string of manipulative, top-down power show-offs.?

“You are our employee, you will do what we say.”

When CEOs need to feel invulnerable and in charge, many of them will be only too eager to reach out for top-down power-and-control mechanisms to bring their people and organizations in line.

The downside: this never lasts. Today people have real options for working and living, and bullying people into submission doesn’t work anymore. Thank God for that.?

Reactivity Habit Nr. 4: Moodiness

CEOs are also people. As such, they will also experience internal emotional rollercoasters that may be amplified by the weight of the CEO role.?

That is fine, as long as the CEO has been trained in emotional intelligence and knows how to handle their mood so it doesn’t spill into their executive team and decision-making.?

But for many CEOs their emotional moods are their Bible. They won’t make an effort to notice, understand, and master their emotions; by the contrary, they will allow their random emotions to influence their communications and their choices.?

As such, people will tend to start walking on eggshells around them. They will try guessing their boss’s moods and bring them issues, ideas, and suggestions only when they feel the CEO is in a mood to deal with it. This behavior can have major consequences for an organization’s capacity to function steadily and to innovate based on facts, not on the boss’s latest mood.?

Reactivity Habit Nr. 5: Favoritism ?

Again, CEOs are only people. As such, they will also have their favorites in their executive teams and across the organization.?

Does this mean that those favorites should get special treatment, privileges, and better salary raise and promotion opportunities??

Not at all.?

When the CEO needs to feel closely connected to a handful of people who are “better or more loyal than others,” this can fuel resentment and backstabbing in the executive team. Besides, the price paid by their favorites is heavy – when the CEO is gone, no one will respect them anymore and they will get the entire force of the backlash that no one dared to project directly onto the previous CEO.?

Reactivity Habit Nr. 6: Procrastination ?

I had a CEO who asked me to secure media interviews for him. I did. However, every time I would arrange an interview, my CEO would fall sick the day before and we would need to postpone the media encounter.?

Why??

He was too afraid of saying something wrong. So, on the one hand he knew that his job was to represent the company, but on the other hand he was just terrified. We failed to deliver the number of media visibility interactions he had hoped for and I stopped working for that client.?

Reactivity Habit Nr. 7: Excessive Criticism and Micromanagement ??

Yes, you can become the CEO even when you are still a micromanager. This type of personality is often focused on what doesn’t go well and what could go even better.?

This is why a perfectionist CEO might make it a habit to breathe down the neck of their people. Thus they reduce everyone’s psychological safety and appetite to experiment, test, and fail.?

The Solution? Self-Reflection and Emotional Growth

There are many more ways in which mental, emotional, and behavioral reactivity can dent a CEO’s reputation and ability to be respected and to drive phenomenal results for their organizations. ?

The greatest issue with CEO reactivity is that it is often left unattended. People thing: they are the CEOs, right, so they are supposed to be the best in class. They are supposed to have mastered their emotions and behaviors already. And if they have these flaws, well, I guess these flaws become more acceptable in us, mere humans, as well.?

The problem with this approach is that any form of emotional immaturity in top executives is pure cancer for a company’s culture. Until executives understand that just because they get away with being reactive doesn’t make it right, few things can change in an organization.

Company cultures live and die with their CEOs and top execs’ level of emotional intelligence. When EI in top leadership is underdeveloped, the company cultures will remain opaque and problematic, and organizations will continue to fail reaching their bigger potential. And that’s a loss for everybody.?

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Could You, the CEO, and Your Company Benefit from Working a Bit More on Your Emotional Intelligence? Or Do You Have a CEO in Need of EI? Let’s Talk.

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