Driving Startup Success: Key Behaviors, Traits, and Frameworks for Aspiring Founders turn CEOs

Introduction:

According to Botelho, Powell, Kincaid, and Wang (2017), successful CEOs demonstrate specific behaviors that distinguish them from others. Dewar, Keller, Malhotra, and Strovink (2023) explain that what makes a successful CEO includes setting clear strategies and effectively mobilizing resources. Stamoulis (2016) highlights how the best CEOs differ significantly from average ones. Dewar, Keller, Malhotra, and Strovink (2023) outline essential practices for top-performing CEOs in the McKinsey guide to excelling as a CEO. Ancona and Bresman (2023) discuss how X-teams can lead, innovate, and succeed by leveraging external activities and maintaining flexible internal structures. The five-factor theory perspective on personality traits is extensively covered by McCrae and Costa (2003), providing insights into how traits like conscientiousness and openness contribute to leadership success.        

As students transition from the creation phase of their startups to capturing value and mastering operational excellence, it is crucial to adopt a mindset that balances innovation with effective execution. The journey from ideation to operational success involves not just maintaining the drive to create value but also honing the ability to capture that value through superior operational practices.

Operational excellence can be symbolized by five main attributes (Tambun, T. 2023b):

1. Superb Storytelling Skills: The ability to communicate a compelling vision and narrative is essential for attracting investors, customers, and team members. Great storytelling can differentiate a startup in a crowded market and build a strong brand identity. (Tambun, 2024)
2. King or Rich?: Founders must decide whether they want to prioritize control over their company (being the 'king') or prioritize growth and wealth creation (being 'rich'). This decision influences strategic choices, such as seeking external funding or pursuing partnerships. (Wasserman, 2016)
3. Inclusive Teams: Building teams with complementary skills and networks but aligned objectives is key to achieving operational success. This principle, often encapsulated in the concept of 'Tikkun Olam' (repairing the world), emphasizes the importance of diverse yet united teams working towards a common goal. (Frei, 2020; Frei & Morris, 2020, Tambun, 2023a)
4. Discipline! Don't Jump: In the "24 Steps of Disciplined Entrepreneurship" framework, each step builds on the previous one to ensure a systematic and thorough approach to developing a successful startup. Skipping steps can lead to missing critical insights or making premature decisions, ultimately jeopardizing the startup's potential for success. (Aulet, 2013)
5. Delivering Profit through a Solid Value Chain: Operational excellence starts with a strategic statement that clearly defines the company's mission and vision. This must be supported by a robust value chain that ensures efficient and effective delivery of products or services, ultimately driving profitability. (Porter, 2003)

While these attributes are developed over time, they can be accelerated by gaining comprehensive knowledge across various domains. This includes, but is not limited to, ethnography (read: primary market research), lead users framework or design thinking, operations, running experimentation, running R&D department, sales for startup, legal for startup (including term sheet), tax, accounting, valuation, financing, human resources, industrial sense-making, communication, and negotiation (Tambun, 2023d)

These areas form the backbone of what many educational programs offer under different names: Venture Tactics, Mini-MBAs, or even full MBA programs and Corporate University offerings.

The CEOs

We explore how the best CEOs embody these principles and capabilities, combining key behaviors with the 4-CAP+ framework (sensemaking, visioning, inventing, relating, and building credibility). This comprehensive approach will provide a robust guide for emerging founders aiming to master operational excellence and drive their startups to success.

1.Decisiveness (Conscientiousness, Sensemaking)

Successful CEOs make decisions quickly and with conviction, even amid ambiguity. They avoid indecision, which can stall the entire organization. Effective CEOs solicit multiple viewpoints and act with 65% certainty rather than waiting for perfect information (Botelho et al., 2017; Stamoulis, 2016). This aligns with conscientiousness and sensemaking capabilities.

2.Engaging for Impact (Low Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, Relating)

High-performing CEOs effectively engage stakeholders by understanding their priorities and driving for performance. They balance listening to others with making decisive calls and do not default to consensus-driven decision-making. They also manage their communications carefully to avoid unintended negative impacts (Botelho et al., 2017; Stamoulis, 2016). This involves low agreeableness, emotional stability, and relating capabilities.

3.Proactive Adaptation (Openness, Conscientiousness, Inventing)

Effective CEOs are adaptable and spend significant time thinking about long-term strategies. They regularly scan diverse sources of information to sense changes early and adjust strategies accordingly (Botelho et al., 2017). This combines openness, conscientiousness, and inventing capabilities.

4.Reliable Execution (Conscientiousness, Inventing, Building Credibility)

Consistency in delivering results is crucial. Successful CEOs ensure that strategies are effectively executed by aligning talent, culture, and organizational design with the company's goals. They also manage their time and energy to maintain a sustainable pace (Dewar et al., 2023; Botelho et al., 2017). This requires conscientiousness, inventing, and building credibility capabilities.

5.Boldness (Openness, Emotional Stability, Visioning)

Boldness is a key predictor of CEO excellence. Effective CEOs make bold strategic moves early and frequently to drive significant performance improvements. They do not shy away from risk but manage it wisely to leverage opportunities (Dewar et al., 2023). This aligns with openness, emotional stability, and visioning capabilities.

6. Humility and Self-Awareness (Building Credibility)

The best CEOs exhibit humility, recognizing their own biases and skill gaps. They seek continuous learning and development and understand the importance of building and relying on a strong team (Dewar et al., 2023). This is driven by sense-making and inventing.

7.Focus on Substance (Conscientiousness, Sensemaking)

Successful CEOs prioritize key issues and rise above details to see the larger picture. They have a keen sense of priorities and focus on the most significant challenges and opportunities facing their organizations. However, they are also adept at knowing the details when necessary, ensuring a deep understanding of critical aspects of their organization (Stamoulis, 2016). This aligns with conscientiousness and sensemaking capabilities.

8.Stakeholder Relationships (Relating, Building Credibility)

Effective CEOs build strong relationships with their boards, establishing trust and clear responsibilities. They use their boards as resources and ensure that board members are well-informed and engaged in strategic discussions (Dewar et al., 2023). This involves relating and building credibility capabilities.

9.Resilience and Drive (Openness, Emotional Stability, Building Credibility)

CEOs who excel demonstrate strong drive and resilience. They are original thinkers, capable of visualizing the future and catalyzing others to action. They maintain composure under pressure and are willing to engage in conflict when necessary (Stamoulis, 2016). This combines openness and emotional stability and building credibility.

10.Execution Skills (Conscientiousness, Inventing)

Successful CEOs ensure coherence in management processes, align talent to value, and actively manage cultural elements that drive performance. They make timely and effective resource reallocations and foster organizational agility (Dewar et al., 2023).

Leadership and Traits

Combining the key behaviors of successful CEOs with the 4-CAP+ capabilities of the X-Team framework (sensemaking, visioning, inventing, relating, and building credibility) (Ancona & Bresman, 2023) and integrating the relevant Big Five personality traits provides a comprehensive guide for founders (Leutner et al ,2014; McRey & Costa, 2003) . Here’s how these elements align:

4-CAP+ Framework

The 4-CAP+ framework (Ancona & Bresman, 2023) consists of five key capabilities that effective leaders and CEOs need to master:

1. Sensemaking: The ability to understand and interpret complex and ambiguous information. It involves gathering insights from various sources and making sense of how different elements fit together to inform strategic decisions (Tambun, 2023c).
2. Visioning: The capability to create a compelling and clear vision for the future. Visioning involves articulating a strategic direction that inspires and guides the organization towards long-term goals.
3. Inventing: This capability focuses on developing new solutions, approaches, and strategies. It includes the ability to plan and execute innovative ideas effectively, ensuring they are practical and actionable.
4. Relating: The ability to build and maintain strong relationships within and outside the organization. Relating involves understanding and managing the needs and motivations of stakeholders, fostering trust, and encouraging collaboration.
5. Building Credibility: This capability involves demonstrating ethical behavior, moral values, and integrity. Building credibility is about being trustworthy and reliable, which helps to earn the respect and trust of stakeholders.

Big Five Personality Traits

The Big Five personality traits are a widely accepted framework for understanding human personality (Leutner et al ,2014; McRey & Costa, 2003). These traits are:

1. Openness to Experience: Reflects the degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and preference for novelty and variety. High openness indicates a person is imaginative, open-minded, and willing to consider new ideas.
2. Conscientiousness: Indicates a person's level of organization, dependability, and discipline. High conscientiousness is associated with being diligent, efficient, and systematic in managing tasks and responsibilities.
3. Extraversion: Describes a person's level of sociability, energy, and assertiveness. While extraversion involves being outgoing and energetic, in this context, we focus on the aspects of taking initiative and driving engagement without necessarily being extroverted.
4. Agreeableness: Reflects a person's tendency to be compassionate, cooperative, and harmonious in relationships. Lower agreeableness in CEOs can be beneficial for making tough decisions and pushing back when necessary, focusing on achieving results over maintaining harmony.
5. Neuroticism (Emotional Stability): Indicates a person's tendency to experience negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, or depression. Low neuroticism, or high emotional stability, is characterized by being calm, composed, and resilient under pressure.

CONCLUSIONS

By integrating these traits, behaviors, and capabilities, the combined framework offers a robust guide for teaching founder classes on leadership and execution. This approach emphasizes the importance of decisiveness, engagement, adaptability, reliable execution, and boldness, supported by the necessary personality traits and the 4-CAP+ capabilities of the X-Team framework. Special emphasis is placed on the inventing capability, highlighting the ability to deliver and plan effectively, alongside maintaining ethical standards to build credibility.

Disclaimer:

Despite condemnation from esteemed academicians with long titles in this country, who label an article in LinkedIn or in newspaper (even in a national newspaper) as "pseudo science," I remain unfazed. My priority is the practical value and usefulness of this writing for my beloved students and audiences. I believe in delivering real-world insights over academic elitism.

REFERENCES

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