WHAT ESSENTIAL CEO SKILLS SHOULD BE IN YOUR LEADERSHIP TOOLKIT?

Do you have skills in these four fundamental areas of focus?

‘The “great resignation” is a reappraisal of leadership. It is a great reckoning on how we’re leading our companies and whether we’ve really thought about the lived experience of working at our companies.’ – Wendy Clark, CEO of Dentsu International, to PwC

What are the essential skills of a CEO as we look towards 2024?

For a start, the skills needed by CEOs must re-equip them for the challenges of a complex workplace. A 2023 PwC survey revealed most CEOs were concerned about the effects on their profit from:

• Changing customer preferences
• Regulatory change
• Skills shortages
• Technology disruption

To a lesser extent they worried about the effects of supply chain disruption, transition to new energy sources, and new entrants to their industry from adjacent industries. And, nearly 4 in 10 CEOs think their company will no longer be economically viable a decade from now if it continues along its current path. (1)

What’s required in this pressured environment is an understanding of essential CEO skills to ensure any leadership skills gap isn’t compromising the viability of your organisation.

Ahead of our newly launched Senior Leadership Program , let’s look at the skills needed in CEOs and senior leadership teams.

Free Download: 10 Leadership Qualities That Will Help Solve Challenges in 2023

Essential skills: The 4 Areas of Focus

While there are many areas that need the attention of CEOs in 2023, award-winning executive coach John Spence , author of ‘Awesomely Simple’ and facilitator of the Senior Leadership Program, believes CEOs and executive leaders should aim for four fundamental areas of focus, expressed by the formula:

(Talent + Culture + Extreme Customer Focus) x Discipline Execution = Business Excellence

Let’s take a look at each in turn.

People Skills To Attract and Retain Top Talent

People skills, often placed under the umbrella of 'soft skills', are non-negotiable skills at the CEO and senior executive level.

As Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, will expand upon at his Chicago workshop for CEOs in October, those who build great organisations have "the right people on the bus." His famous concept of "First Who, Then What" urges CEOs to make sure they have the right people on the bus and the right people in the key seats before they figure out where to drive the bus.

So people skills represent a vital toolkit in not just hiring and managing, but truly understanding, connecting with, and motivating the workforce. Advanced people skills can become the CEO's most significant asset for attracting and retaining top talent.

Key skills include:

1. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence (EQ): High EQ enables a CEO or senior leaders to better navigate sensitive issues, resolve conflicts, and foster an environment where employees feel valued and understood. By demonstrating genuine concern for their team's well-being, leaders can boost morale and deepen employee loyalty.
2. Effective Communication: Clear communication is about being an active listener, ensuring clarity, and promoting open dialogue. Leaders must ensure their messages land, resonate, and inspire. Creating platforms where employees can voice concerns or share ideas can foster a culture of trust and inclusivity.
3. Recognition and Praise: Recognising efforts and providing timely, specific praise can significantly improve job satisfaction and engagement. CEOs and senior executives should actively seek opportunities to celebrate successes and encourage a culture where peers recognise each other's achievements.
4. Adaptability: CEOs must be agile, willing to pivot strategies when required, and open to feedback. By showing adaptability, leaders send a powerful message to their teams: they value growth, learning, and innovation.
5. Coaching and Mentorship: Today's workforce, especially the millennial and Gen-Z cohorts, value growth and learning opportunities. CEOs and senior executives can foster talent retention by becoming coaches and mentors. This involves providing regular feedback and investing in learning opportunities.
6. Cultivating Team Collaboration: Cross-functional teams working cohesively can lead to enhanced creativity and innovation. Leaders should demonstrate teamwork, be open to ideas from all levels of the organisation and create opportunities for collaborative projects and brainstorming sessions.
7. Building Trust: For a CEO, this means being transparent, sticking to promises, and admitting when they're wrong. When employees trust their leaders, they are more likely to be committed, engaged, and aligned with the company's vision and objectives.

Skills to Build a Strong Culture

Culture is often likened to the soul of an organisation. The CEO’s skills make or break the right environment.

For example, psychological safety , a term popularised by Harvard’s Amy Edmondson , is the CEO's ability to cultivate an atmosphere where employees can voice their ideas, even the unconventional ones, without fear of retribution.

Adam Grant , renowned organisational psychologist, will amplify this idea at his in-person event Adam Grant LIVE: Unlock Hidden Potential & Transform WorkLife in February 2024. With that in mind, here are key skills for building a strong culture:

1. Visionary Leadership: A strong culture begins with a clear vision. CEOs need a “North Star” that guides the company's strategies and decisions, ensuring alignment at all levels.

Under the leadership of CEO Indra Nooyi , PepsiCo moved from just selling snacks and drinks; it pursued purpose. This comprised 3 pillars:

• Transforming the portfolio to include healthier products
• Having a major focus on environmental issues
• Creating a different environment in the company to bring the best and brightest talent in.?

It's clear Nooyi understood the benefits of purposeful leadership .

2. Authenticity: Trust is high in authentic leadership, one of the most effective of the 10 styles of leadership . There’s transparency in leader-follower interactions, they see their people as human, and they encourage and reward honesty.

3. Emotional Intelligence (EQ): As discussed earlier, leaders with high EQ are better equipped to read the room, understand the underlying sentiments of their teams, and address issues before they escalate.

4. Empowering Leadership: Instead of hoarding power and decision-making capabilities, transformative CEOs empower their teams and, thus, ‘democratise leadership.’

5. Continuous Feedback and Open Communication: Feedback flows freely, both top-down and bottom-up when a CEO fosters an environment where employees feel safe to voice their opinions, concerns, and ideas.

6. Adaptability and Resilience: Having a growth mindset, embracing change as an opportunity, being receptive to new ideas, and showcasing resilience during challenging times.

7. Investing in Professional Development: A culture of continuous learning and growth should be role-modeled by the CEO, who should also champion leadership development in more of their team (for example with our Emerging Leaders Program ).

8. Celebrating Diversity and Inclusivity: Embracing diversity — in thought, experience, and background — enriches culture. CEOs should actively celebrate and measure diversity, ensuring that all voices are heard and valued.

9. Recognising and Rewarding: Recognising efforts, celebrating milestones, and rewarding excellence builds a stronger culture where employees aim to consistently perform at their best.

10. Leading by Example: The adage "actions speak louder than words" holds especially true when building culture. CEOs and senior executives must set the precedent and embody the values they wish to instill.

Skills for Extreme Customer Focus

In today's competitive landscape, merely satisfying customers isn’t enough. Top-performing companies embed extreme customer focus in their ethos. Here are four critical skills CEOs and senior executives should hone:

1. Active Listening: It's about understanding the nuances, emotions, and deeper needs expressed by customers.CEO Action: Engage directly with customers through feedback sessions. Prioritise listening without rushing to solutions.
2. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence (EQ): When leaders can put themselves in their customer's shoes, they can predict needs, foresee challenges, and offer solutions that genuinely resonate.CEO Action: Promote sharing of customer stories to foster emotional connections. Encourage training that boosts EQ and enhances understanding of customer emotions.
3. Data-Driven Decision-Making: It's not about collecting massive amounts of data; it's about gleaning insights that can enhance the customer experience.CEO Action: Regularly analyse customer data for patterns. Equip the executive team with tools to derive meaningful insights, emphasising personalising customer interactions.
4. Agile and Adaptive Thinking: What works today might be obsolete tomorrow. Stay nimble and ready to pivot based on changing customer preferences.CEO Action: Encourage scenario planning with a focus on customer outcomes. Foster a culture of experimentation and adaptability.
5. Employee Experience: As Salesforce’s Global Head of Growth Tiffani Bova told our masterclass , employees are “the keepers of your Customer Experience promise,” so they need to be given as much care and attention.CEO Action: Align on a singular definition of Employee Experience (EX) across your organisation. And, When mapping your customer journey do the same beneath it, focusing on your employees.

Skills for Disciplined Execution

This is the “humility and indomitable will” in top leaders spoken of by Jim Collins, author of ‘Good to Great.’ A Level 5 leader achieves accountability and corporate objectives, not through sheer force, but by igniting the collective spirit of the entire team.

CEOs and their senior teams need to be adept at bringing vision into reality. A pinnacle event to consider for this is Jim Collins LIVE: Good to Great Immersion Workshop in Chicago, USA, on 17 October.?

For now, here are four skills essential for executing with discipline:

1. Prioritisation: Amidst numerous tasks, identifying and focusing on what truly matters is paramount. CEO Action: Establish clear objectives and align them with the company's mission. Regularly review priorities, ensuring alignment with long-term goals and immediate needs.
2. Delegation and Trust: Effective leaders understand they can't do it all. Delegating tasks empowers teams, building a sense of responsibility. CEO Action: Identify strengths within the team and delegate tasks accordingly. Create an environment of trust, reinforcing the idea that mistakes are learning opportunities. Finally, create a culture of accountability so that everyone has clarity around their role and the KPIs for that role.
3. Monitoring and Feedback: Constant evaluation ensures that strategies stay on track, and feedback loops help identify areas for improvement.CEO Action: Implement robust performance metrics. Encourage a culture of open communication where feedback is constructive and solutions-oriented.
4. Resilience and Adaptability: Be flexible enough to adapt when necessary.CEO Action: Foster a mindset of growth and learning. Embrace setbacks as learning experiences, adapting strategies based on lessons learned.

Improve Your Skills the Easy Way

Specifically curated for CEOs and top-tier managers and executives, our Senior Leadership Program distills the wisdom of the world’s most respected researchers and authors, such as Jim Collins, on the essential skills for leadership excellence.

Facilitator John Spence’s approach, which revolves around making the complex easy, will empower CEOs to not just learn, but to develop actionable strategies.

If you're a CEO, or aspire to be one, our Senior Leadership Program promises a transformative experience. Because, as Indra Nooyi aptly put it, the success of the leader reflects the success of the entire organisation.

"The distance between number one and number two is always a constant. If you want to improve the organisation, you have to improve yourself and the organisation gets pulled up with you."

?

1.?????PwC’s 26th Annual Global CEO Survey?