|
|
|
|
Guest: Smith Holland, a coach at CEO Coaching International. Smith served as President & CEO of three businesses, including Crayola, Hallmark Global, and Hallmark Canada, with revenues ranging from $125 million to $2 billion.
Quick Background: No “good” company makes the leap to “great” without exceptional leadership. Where good CEOs just keep the gears turning, great CEOs actually create value by managing a culture that inspires peak performance and drives consistent growth.
On today’s show, Smith Holland discusses how leadership drives value creation, how the CEO multiplier effect amplifies the CEO’s impact across the organization, and how he coaches CEOs to unlock their potential and Make BIG Happen.
4 Traits of a Great Leader From Smith Holland
1. The CEO Multiplier Effect
It’s impossible to excel at CEO-level responsibilities without having top talent in your c-suite and other key leadership positions. When you know you’ve hired the best, you’ll spend less time holding hands and more time doing what only the CEO can accomplish.
But even the best need to keep improving and scaling their capabilities along with the company’s growth trajectory. CEOs need to take an active role in not only identifying talent, but developing it at every level of the business.
“A lot of leadership can be learned over time,” Smith says. “Leadership can be taught as well. Great leaders know that one of their number one responsibilities as a CEO is to ensure that the leadership team that reports to them is full of great leaders. I call this the ‘CEO Multiplier Effect.’ A great CEO works every day with those leaders to coach them and to make sure that they’re continuing to improve upon their leadership. And, unfortunately, if they don’t feel like they’ve got the right person in those roles, great CEOs have the courage to make a change and make sure that they have great leadership because that’s how it multiplies. If you have a great leadership team in place, they then can affect those below them, and it can multiply throughout the organization. And so it’s not only being a leader yourself, but cultivating and developing other great leaders beneath you.”
2. Manage the right people the right way.
“ I think when you’re managing great leaders below you, you’ve got to be involved ‘enough,'” Smith says. “Have a good enough understanding of what they’re trying to do in their division or their department in terms of their objectives, their goals, the issues they’re dealing with. You need to have enough context so that you can be helpful as a coach and as a boss and to help them develop. At the same time, it’s a fine line because you don’t want to be so involved that they feel like you’re micromanaging them.”
The kinds of strong, ambitious leaders that CEOs need also tend to have strong personalities themselves. Assessments such as DISC can help CEOs minimize the potential for c-suite squabbles and culture clashes before they make a key hire. But no one test can reveal the total complexity of a high-performing executive, or account for how that leader’s own goals and priorities could evolve over time.
Smith believes there’s a BIG difference between empowering subordinates in leadership positions, and being a “ceremonial” CEO who’s too detached from the challenges leaders are facing, the pros and cons of their management styles, and the individual support they need from the CEO to execute and get results.
“One thing that’s true of all great leaders is they want to be empowered, they want to have the autonomy to do their thing and to do great work,” Smith says. “If they feel like you’re so involved that you’re smothering them or micromanaging them, that’s not a great formula either. You’ve got to find a way to balance between those two. And it’s tricky because that will vary depending on the individual and depending on the situation. For instance, if you’ve got a great leader under you and she’s involved in something where she’s an expert and has a lot of experience, you have to know to back off a little bit and give her quite a bit of space. But at the same time, you may have another report in an area where he doesn’t have very much experience and he’s kind of in the deep end of the pool. And in those situations, you have to get much more involved or that person could drown. So it’s this balance between knowing how to read the situation, and knowing when to back off versus when you need to be involved on a day-to-day basis so that you can have people underneath you who feel very empowered, feel very autonomous. But at the same time, they should feel like their boss is really helpful and that they can draw on you as needed to help them continue to grow.”
3. Be self-aware and authentic.
CEOs can learn from the personality traits and mindsets that have sparked BIG success for other leaders. But no one wants to follow an imitation of somebody else.
Having the courage to be your authentic self starts with having the courage to be self-aware about your strengths and weaknesses. Great CEOs also have enough humility to accept feedback from those around them and make appropriate adjustments that come from a place of genuine care and a genuine willingness to improve.
“Take the time to understand your own behavioral style and how you like to act, how you like to work, and have a good understanding of those that you’re working with as well so that you can meet them where they are,” Smith Holland says. “Then you can can adjust the way you communicate, your body language, the pace with which you work. It’s best to vary those things to try to match the communication style and work preferences of those that you’re trying to work with. You always want to be yourself, for sure. So you can’t fake this or force it. But it’s okay to adjust yourself and check yourself and adjust your style based on how other people can work most effectively. You’re not always going to get this right, and that’s okay. But having a trusting, communicative relationship and checking in not only on the actual work itself but also on how we’re working together, and having enough trust to be able to have candid conversations about that, is hugely important.”
4. “Block and tackle” for your team.
Smith was an offensive lineman for the University of Kansas football team. Linemen usually aren’t thought of as stars. They don’t get plays called for them. They rarely, if ever, touch the ball. If you hear their names on TV, it’s usually because they just committed a penalty.
But as anyone who watched this year’s Super Bowl knows, the BIG game is often won and lost in the trenches by the players who do the hard work, create space to keep the ball moving, and Make BIG Happen for the team as a whole.
“ I think the position of offensive line is a serving position,” Smith Holland says. “This notion of being a servant leader is, it’s not all about you. The ‘celebrity CEO’ is not my thing. Yes, you need to be a great CEO. You need to be a good leader. You need to be out there. But you need to understand that this is really more about the purpose. You’re serving the greater purpose that the organization is trying to accomplish. And it’s your job to do the best you can with it, but then also hand it over to the next person to take it to the next level.”
Top Takeaways From Smith Holland
1. Don’t be a “good” leader, strive to be a great leader who adds real value to your company.
2. Hire the best and help them to become even better.
3. Serve the greater purpose that your company is trying to achieve.
Links:
Push Your CEO Skills Over the Goal Line – Former NFL player and CEO coach Rafe Wilkinson shares his game plan for building a winning business.
7 Ways You Can Up Your Leadership Game as a CEO – CEOs who can’t, or won’t, scale their leadership skills are putting the company’s potential — and their jobs — at risk.
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, the firm has coached more than 1,500+ CEOs and entrepreneurs across 100+ industries and 60 countries. Its coaches—former CEOs, presidents, and executives—have led businesses ranging from startups to over $10 billion, driving double-digit sales and profit growth, many culminating in eight, nine, or ten-figure exits.
Companies that have worked with CEO Coaching International for two years or more have achieved an average revenue CAGR of 31% (2.6X the U.S. average) and an average EBITDA CAGR of 52.3% (more than 5X the U.S. average).
Discover how coaching can transform your leadership journey at ceocoachinginternational.com.
Learn more about executive coaching | Meet our world-class coaches
