Lost Your Mojo and Feeling Stuck? 3 Tips for CEOs to Reignite Your Spark
Post-pandemic, the business world has had some very healthy discussions about work-life balance, especially from the high-pressure seat of a CEO. But no matter how good a CEO gets at setting those boundaries and unplugging outside of the office, you’re still spending at least half of your day in that office. And the day-to-day, minute-by-minute realities of running a business are still a BIG threat to the CEO’s passion for the business.
If enforcing work-life balance hasn’t walled off feeling stuck, dissatisfied, disengaged, and burned out, then you might need to pursue a new strategy: work-life integration.
Reigniting the spark that inspired you to create or lead a company in the first place can make your job an important part of a fulfilling whole.
These three tips could help you fan that spark into the flame you need to get your mojo back and start Making BIG Happen–Again.
Tip #1: Reconnect, Reflect, and Realign with Your “Why.”
Think back to your first day at the BIG job. You might have been fulfilling orders in your garage. Or you might have been riding the elevator up to a well-deserved promotion. However you got there, you weren’t just excited to lead. You were excited to lead THIS company.
Ask yourself:
- Why did you start the company in the first place?
- Why did you want the be CEO?
- What did that initial vision look like?
- What were the personal and professional values you wanted to put into action?
- What kind of team did you want to assemble and empower?
- What kind of an impact did you want to make on the community? Employees? Shareholders? Your own family?
If you need a completely blank canvas to rediscover your passion, adapt CEO Coaching International’s Crystal Ball Exercise. Look out to the end of this year, or even 3 to 5 years. You’re in the middle of the BIGGEST party your company has ever thrown, celebrating …
What?
What does that vision of success look like? It’s probably not just a dollar amount or a sales target. It’s something transformative that’s going to change your company’s trajectory and the lives of all the people it touches.
Once you reconnect with that BIG vision, call a meeting with your C-suite and review your company’s core identity — or, if need be, start from scratch.
Identify the misalignment between what you want to accomplish as the CEO (Vision), where your company is currently headed (Mission), and how it’s operating (Values). Get back in touch with what you want your company to be, and you’ll get back in touch with why you’re the person to realize that dream.
Tip #2: Reframe Your Role
No one starts a company because they’re dreaming about doing repetitive paperwork, micromanaging C-grade employees, fielding angry customer service calls, or running from one endless meeting to the next. But, at the early stages of a business, that’s what many CEOs do out of necessity.
As the company grows, the scope of those tasks grows too. And if the CEO doesn’t learn how to let go, delegate, and focus, they’ll spend too much time “doing” and not enough time “leading.”
So, what’s the difference?
To paraphrase Marshall Goldsmith, the CEO is the company’s poet, not the plumber. And a company only has one poet. No one else can establish the vision, the culture, and the strategic imperatives that will get the company to BIG. No one else can manage the five top-level responsibilities — Vision, Cash, People, Relationships, and Learning — that are essential to creating sustainable growth. That’s the leader’s job.
Anything that doesn’t fall under those responsibilities needs to be assigned to your “doers,” starting with your C-suite executives. For example, if your COO doesn’t have the technical skills to implement your AI roadmap, then you need to hire a Chief AI Officer. You might also need a Chief Experience Officer who can create stronger connections between what your company is doing now and what you want it to do in the near future.
But if you fill these seats and you’re still spending too much of your day reviewing technical integrations or facilitating communication between departments, then you don’t have the best people working for you.
If you don’t fix that problem and hire people to whom you can dependably delegate, then you’re dooming yourself to more burnout.
The less time you spend “doing” your subordinates’ jobs, the more time you’ll have to focus on “leading” the company’s strategic planning. And if you feel like that sort of “leading” isn’t enough “working,” remember this: if you’re not setting the company’s direction, from the top down, then nobody is.
Tip #3: Seek Fresh Inspiration
Of all the CEO’s top-level responsibilities, Learning is the one that tends to get pushed to the side most often. Much like strategic planning and visioning, stepping outside the business to read, attend a conference, or meet with a mentor can feel selfish, even a little lazy. But if doing the same activities over and over and over again is a surefire way to burn out, so is locking your mind in the same loop of predictable cause and effect, conventional wisdom, and safe stewardship.
Inspiration can come from many different places.
Trying a new hobby, sport, or exercise class might stimulate something unexpected in your body or mind.
Joining an organization like YPO will provide you with a forum where you can exchange ideas with and learn from other leaders.
Attending conferences and trade shows can keep you up to date on the latest trends and connect you with CEOs and thought leaders. Be especially open to conferences outside your own industry and events that will challenge what you think you know. For example, the most recent edition of our Make BIG Happen Summit went beyond business management and covered diverse topics like AI, altruism, communication, and longevity.
The Wall Street Journal ran a recent article on CEOs who find time for triathlon training and motorcycle racing. You can bet those CEOs show up for work refreshed and recharged.
Your company’s culture and org chart can also be a very powerful source of inspiration.
Be more intentional about casting a wider net and scouting for talent in unexpected places where your competitors might not be looking. Hire people who know more than you do about AI, customer needs, social media trends, and diversity initiatives so that you can learn from them and feed what you learn back into the business. Spend a couple of lunch hours hanging out with your R&D team, or tagging along with sales so that you can see your company from different perspectives.
Heck, Steve Jobs and his top designer Jony Ive “had lunch together most days and spent our afternoons in the sanctuary of the design studio.”
Finally, be open to learning what you don’t know about yourself. Burnout can take many forms, some of which might be buried in your blind spots.
The next time a disgruntled employee knocks on your door, really listen. Think about how your leadership — or lack thereof — could be contributing to this and other problems at multiple levels of the organization. And if you really can’t see what your team is trying to show you, start working with a CEO coach who won’t be afraid to call you out and confront you with tough truths.
One of those truths is that uninspired leadership will sap the soul right out of your company, floor by floor. And once you start bringing that kind of energy home with you, your work and your life will be thrown out of balance.
Just about every CEO experiences burnout. The best do something about it. Start by reminding yourself who’s in control of the company and your schedule. Take back your time. Trust great people to do great work. Reinvest the same passion and values that you live by into your company and you’ll start Making BIG Happen again.
About CEO Coaching International
CEO Coaching International works with CEOs and their leadership teams to achieve extraordinary results quarter after quarter, year after year. Known globally for its success in coaching growth-focused entrepreneurs to meaningful exits, CEO Coaching International has coached more than 1,000 CEOs and entrepreneurs in more than 60 countries and 45 industries. The coaches at CEO Coaching International are former CEOs, presidents, or executives who have made BIG happen. The firm’s coaches have led double-digit sales and profit growth in businesses ranging in size from startups to over $10 billion, and many are founders that have led their companies through successful eight, nine, and ten-figure exits. Companies working with CEO Coaching International for two years or more have experienced an average EBITDA CAGR of 53.5% during their time as a client, more than three times the U.S. average, and a revenue CAGR of 26.2%, nearly twice the U.S. average.
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