Building the CEO Muscle

Amongst all the analogies that come to mind when thinking about a CEO’s journey, the one around an unfit person’s journey to fitness seems quite apt. Akin to the fitness journey, the CEO journey also:

- Is across a continuum (one is never fully fit or fully unfit)

- Requires balancing multiple priorities (food, exercise, rest / strategy, ops, people)

- Requires working through others to be successful (trainer, dietitian, etc.)

- Needs constant motivation in the face of headwinds

- Rewards perseverance and hence, success

The fitness journey starts with taking stock of the body and mind today and then charting a course with the help of your fitness team. The journey must be followed with intermediate checkpoints and course correction if required. Along the way, there are likely to be missteps and failures, but recovering and marching on with more zeal and elan differentiates the winners.

The CEO journey is no different. One needs to invest energies to build the CEO muscle over time.

What is the “CEO muscle”?

Self-awareness is the mother of all superpowers and “CEO muscle” is one of the best real-life expression of self-awareness. Self-awareness comes from deep personal honesty. Knowing what you can do and what you need help for. The “protein” that builds the CEO muscle is “self – awareness”. Its lonely at the top. There is no playbook for the CEO. Tomes have been written to elicit the “essence” of being a leader. Successful executives (and their biographers) explain “their how” – their thinking, their biases, their methods, which was great for their context and situation. But you are not them.

Your "How"

You, your thinking, biases, context, situation is different. No one can define the solution space for you. No one else but you can draw out “your how”. Self-awareness helps draw the contours of “your how”. “Your how” may not be perfect, may not be liked, may not be understood but it will be yours. It will feel natural and real to you. You will own it and it will motivate you. You will learn to preserve and nourish it. When there is clarity on the course of action, the methods become obvious. These methods help define the framework under which your team operates. Parts of framework will be rigid and some part will be flexible. But your team will know why they are such. Your team will know “your how” and will know what needs to be done. Communication will be purposeful and timely.

At XQtiv Talent Partners we help executives draw the contours of their own "how" which in turn, spurs them to practice authentic leadership and develop their CEO muscle.

#CEO #Leadership