What CEOs In The Marine Industry Don't Like To Hear
Davide Scalia
Maritime Technical Advisor / Business Strategy Engineer / LinkedIn Top Voice / Speaker / Startup Mentor / Investor / Sales & Marketing Trainer
To be a CEO, you must be an exceptionally hard worker. To fill that role, you have to make the right decisions to improve your company while facing new challenges every day.
There is a common phenomenon called the “loneliness of CEOs.” According to the Harvard Business Review, 61% of CEOs believe that isolation is the best strategy for productive performance.
This belief is problematic, however, as it means that your mindset is no longer innovative but rather conservative. Those working with you are silently suffering as a result of it.
It may be hard for you as a CEO to listen, just as it may be hard for you to understand that there are people in your company who are struggling to inform you of their genuine, passion-driven ideas to improve the company. If you are not willing to try something new and you can see your company slowly folding due to your shortcomings, there is something wrong going on. You must acknowledge it.
The reality is that you need a counterpart to discuss new ideas, and those counterparts can be found inside your company or externally. You just have to be honest with yourself and admit the need to confer with others, to be less solitary and more talkative, and to keep an open mind.
It is your responsibility to make sure your company grows while your ego does not, which means taking new approaches and advice that you are not used to taking. If you look around your company, you will see how many people are full of ideas but keep quiet in order to avoid your blind judgment.
The fear of testing with the risk of failure is holding you and your company back. Make this key CEO decision: ask for help.
The amount of tools, strategies, and ideas that exist to improve your company are innumerable, and you personally don’t know all of them. You know the market; you have been inside it for many years; but you may not be able to cope with its changes, with new requests and new needs.
As a CEO, you must be honest with yourself in admitting that you need support. Recognize that you can’t do it all by yourself. You have unique skills and methods of management, true; and now your highest skill is to understand what others can contribute to help your company.
It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help, to use others' ideas, and to rely on others. On the contrary, it shows your strength as well as your power to understand various problems and to use all possibilities to secure solutions. The worst-case scenario is that you fail trying, demonstrating that you are able to put yourself on the front line and be a leader who takes action when needed.
It is the CEO's responsibility to ensure the company grows exponentially. To do this, a CEO’s mind should be at a higher level of self-awareness.
Thank you for reading, I would appreciate hearing your thought on this.
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Davide Scalia is the CEO & Founder of Namaka Consulting, with over 15 years of experience in the Marine Industry and over 10 years’ experience in Strategic Business Development, helping over 500 businesses to clarify what to do next to build the Brand, how to increase sales, giving new ideas to obtain exponential Business Growth.
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Maritime Director
5 年Interesting perspective but my experience is that Vessel Command is more lonely. Whilst embracing the team and getting the best from everyone is key in a ship and often they are the experts and the Commanding Officer is not, decision making in this environment is far more time critical and pertinent. As a CEO there is the relationship with the Chair which is fundamental and thought leadership properly invoked brings the team into the decision making process intrinsically. I believe the CEO role is more of an orchestra conductor and far less hierarchical these days. Less so in enterprise perhaps but certainly true in the corporate environment.
Manager - Western Marine Services.
5 年Simply answering people who apply to jobs advertised on this site by many so called ‘Recruitment Consultants’ would be helpful too!!
Consulting Manager at Moux Limited
5 年With the advent of digitalisation finally dawning on marine industry leaders this kind of insight is needed more than ever. Traditional leaders in a very tradition orientated industry need to ask for help defining and developing in the fast-paced digital world.
Marine Consultant
5 年?Strongly Agree with your points. I have just been reading a very interesting book "The Relationship Factor in Safety Leadership" by Rosa Antonia Carillo.?
Founder | Humanitarian Catalyst | Engineer | Over-Thinker
5 年Excellent points, Davide.? I think that this also varies widely depending on?the type of company involved and its size.? Each type of organization comes with its unique?stresses and vastly different risk profiles that must be considered by leadership. For example, a massive Fortune 500 company operates far differently and under a different set of "rules" than a small nonprofit.? New ideas?and innovations will?find more welcoming?audiences in organizations that are capable of?absorbing losses if a?new product or service fails to get traction in the target market.