Leadership Archives

Recently, Sue Johnson, Managing Partner for Inclusion & Diversity Consulting at Odgers Berndston, and OrgShakers’ Partner Therese Procter met to discuss the vital role diversity and inclusion (D&I) plays in helping UK workers navigate through challenging times.

“I think there’s a growing unrest at work that’s just bubbling under the surface,” Therese began, going on to highlight how workers are facing both a cost-of-living crisis and the need to adapt to changing ways of working after the pandemic. And while this has brought financial and mental wellness to the top of the overall leadership agenda, responsibility for addressing these complex needs is typically falling to the individual in an organisation that leads D&I strategies.

This continues a longstanding trend in D&I – scope creep – with a growing number of People issues being added to the discipline’s remit in many organisations, including workplace culture, human rights, supply chain governance, and community engagement.

On the one hand this is a positive development, as organisations become increasingly responsive to their environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments. The challenge, however, is that the growing demands on D&I specialists are not being matched with the required resources.

“What you’re seeing is the job being expanded…the agenda is getting broader and broader,” Sue points out. However, the person who is responsible for responding to these D&I issues “are mostly reporting at a lower level… and to really make a change you have got to be able to have a seat at the executive table”.

Also critical is that today’s D&I specialists have the right blend of D&I expertise and wider organisational experience i.e.: they understand how the business ‘ticks’. Sue reflected that all too often in the past the people appointed to D&I roles had either “limited subject matter expertise but huge business experience … or came from HR with the subject matter expertise but lacked the wider business expertise required”.

Therese added that this is why “we are at a point in time where businesses need to reflect on current issues – and reset”. A D&I ‘reset’ that requires the appointment of individuals who, as well as having subject matter expertise and organisational know how, can also make things happen at pace and scale.

“You have to have such high emotional intelligence,” Sue agreed. “You need to be a good influencer, you need to be able to write strategy, and you need to be skilled in change management.”

“And the insights, the awareness, the training, the support, the helplines – the whole infrastructure has to be taken seriously,” Therese added. “That starts with the Board. If it’s not taken seriously and led from the top – and by the top – it will never get traction in the organisation.”

If the scope of the job is broadening, Sue and Therese concluded, then its importance increases by tenfold. And this means having an in-depth and contemporary understanding of all the corners of D&I, knowing how to respond and support employees accordingly – and then being able to win the support of senior leaders and stakeholders.

And aside from an employer’s moral obligation, there is clear financial gain from appointing a D&I specialist with this rare blend of skills. A workplace that is diverse and inclusive garners a higher revenue growth, has a greater readiness to innovate, and gains access to a wider talent pool. Research conducted by Great Place to Work also found that those who believed they would be treated fairly and included were 5.4 times more likely to want to remain at their company.

Adapting to this new normal when it comes to post-pandemic work has seen many new opportunities and challenges emerge in the working world, which is why it is more important than ever to be applying a central focus to your approach to D&I.

To discuss the ways in which the expanding D&I landscape is impacting your organisation, you can get in touch with us here.

To help mitigate the risks of executive derailment in the early stages of executive integration, there are four strategies we recommend.

1. PLAN YOUR LANDING

You would not send a spaceship to Mars without carefully surveying the landing zone and deciding how and where you will enter the planet’s atmosphere. Likewise, before taking on a new role, a new executive should spend their precious upfront time observing and gathering as much data as possible about the business and its people. This data collection should start early during the recruitment and selection process.

Here are some tips to accomplish this:

• Do your Homework: Seek out what you can about the organization’s performance, future ambition, and strategic plans. But, more importantly, try to find out what competitors are saying and prepare a list of questions about how the strategy and values are reflected in everyday decisions.

• Connect the Dots: Talk to current and former employees to find out what has made people successful. Ask the CHRO or HR business partner to share the organization’s talent and succession plans.

• Decode the Culture: Ask for the latest employee engagement survey and dig into the key drivers of organization culture:

a. What language are people using to describe the organization’s culture, accomplishments, and business challenges;

b. What behaviors are tolerated, encouraged, or rewarded; and

c. What processes does the organization value above others (these might become part of your early wins or biggest source of frustration).

2. BE PROACTIVE IN BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

However well-suited you might be for the role you have stepped into, be prepared for the ambiguity that comes with a new mandate and untested relationships.

Building these critical relationships does not just happen accidentally – every new executive needs a plan to identify their stakeholders across the organization, in particular the less obvious ones whose names may not stick out but whose opinion is often sought-after by those in charge.

Over-investing in relationships involves a disciplined approach:

• Rehearse your story and how you want to introduce yourself, why you are here and what you are hoping to learn in these initial interactions – how you first show up will make a lasting impression

• Keep track of any promises you make, information you are missing, and your observations about each person you meet

• Write a fundamental question that shows you mean business. General McChrystal, the former commander of allied forces in Iraq, asked soldiers the same question: “If you couldn’t go home until this war is won, what should we do differently?”

3. DON’T WAIT FOR DIRECTION

Most executives are brought into new roles to create meaningful change. And, usually, they are greeted by a mountain of problems – some in the open and others hidden from view – that they need to tackle. Deciding which to tackle first and making a visible impact on the business is a critical early test of executive integration.

That test is doubly difficult for executives who have been promoted from an operational role and are eager to create a “to do” list rather than take in the big picture. Here, the trickiest part is giving up the temptation to work harder on operational challenges – something VPs are often good at doing – and learning to slow down.

As such, it’s not always wise to play the passive observer for the first 100 days or wait six months before laying out a change plan and making changes.

Susan Doniz, who took on the CIO role at Boeing during the Covid pandemic, has a practical roadmap for new executives: “In the first 30 days, develop your relationships and form a hypothesis. After 30 days, pick the lowest hanging fruit and fix it – fast.” She feels that the window to add value to the organization, executive team and the CEO begins to close after the first 60 days.

4. MAKE YOUR TEAM YOUR TEAM

The number one regret voiced by most executives is that they wish they acted more quickly to make changes to their team.

Making tough people decisions comes with the territory of taking on a new executive role. One CFO we interviewed acknowledged that “letting people go isn’t an easy thing to do,” and pushed off making a call on a few key individuals. “I let it linger, and it had a negative impact on my first year’s performance,” he reflected.

Most new executives need to set a hard one-year limit on getting their team in place. This removes doubt among their team and with their stakeholders. This also avoids the “drip down” effect of making waves of changes, which can create paranoia.

Tips to accelerate your people decisions as a new executive include:

• Quickly sense who is “on the bus” and who is not – trust your instincts

• Ask for stakeholder and peer input, and insist on candor

• Do not aim for perfection in the first 60 – 100 days – seek to improve what you have

• Give yourself a target date for when to have your team in place

Making it through the critical first year of an executive transition requires grit, leadership savvy and the ability to forget what made you successful in the past.

Making a successful transition requires taking a hard look at the leader you are, and the capabilities you need to develop to expand your leadership and succeed in your new role. Transitions can be a test of resilience, especially when you are promoted internally.

If you need coaching and guidance on how to make that transitional change into an executive role, get in touch with our team here.

Shortly after starting a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) role, preceded by an impeccable 20-year career in finance, Peter was gone. What happened?

Joining a new organization is like careening down a highway while still figuring out how the steering works. While scrambling to locate cruise control, you can suddenly find yourself driving on the opposite side of the road, making a wrong turn, or ending up in a ditch. In this two-part article, Dr. Tracy Cocivera, Eric Beaudan, and Gary Payne explore how to overcome the challenges of executive integration.

According to McKinsey and Company, between 27% and 46% of newly placed executives are seen as a failure or a disappointment within two years of joining an organization.

As you transition into a new executive role, you can learn from Peter’s failure through strategic planning, building relationships, proactive decision-making, and understanding the value in your team.

Peter was the CFO of a $1 billion technology firm with operations across three continents, and managing a team of 50 finance professionals. His professional background was impressive, including 15 years as Vice President (VP) Finance at a high-growth technology business which had grown through an aggressive global mergers and acquisition strategy. When he was recruited by a private equity-backed organization seeking a CFO to scale the business and undertake an Initial Public Offering, Peter leapt at the opportunity. Confident and excited, he moved quickly to re-organize his team and launch a finance transformation agenda.

Six months later, Peter’s agenda ran into a wall, as did his trail-blazing career. He left the firm with a generous exit package, but with a bruised ego and sense of self-doubt.

WHAT HAPPENED?

1. Weak relationships – Despite his genuine attempts, Peter failed to forge a close relationship with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and his Chief Strategy Officer, who he underestimated.

2. Trust deficit – He hardly spent time getting to know his team, and instead became quickly frustrated by their shortcomings. He took on the critical reporting tasks he had previously handled as a VP Finance and became mired in minutiae.

3. Lack of communication – He never expressed his doubts and challenges – either with the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) or an external coach – believing that would be seen as a weakness.

Peter’s experience is not unique. Adjusting to a new role, a new team, and demanding stakeholders can be a daunting challenge, even for an accomplished executive. Too often, we have found leaders like Peter are “underprepared for – and unsupported during – the transition to new roles.” (McKinsey & Co., 2018)

McKinsey reported that a successful transition can lead to a 90% likelihood that teams will meet their three-year performance goals. By contrast, unsuccessful transitions can result in a 20% drop in employee engagement and a 15% dip in team performance.

SHIFTING GEARS TO LEAD EFFECTIVELY IN A NEW ROLE

We set out on a quest to interview CEOs and senior executives in the United States, Canada, the UK, and China to better uncover the biggest struggles executives face in a new role. We found that, in many cases, executives have learned to manage culture and organizational politics using instinctive or learned behaviors that may not carry over naturally to a new environment.

The odds of success for newly appointed executives have become even more lopsided during the pandemic, as many workplaces have shifted to remote and hybrid work environments. The CHRO of a large Canadian telecommunications firm noted that remote work has doubled the time it takes for new executives to find their groove.

Combine that with the alarming tendency for both leaders and companies to overestimate their ability to fast-track the success of new executives, their teams can wind up in utter chaos. Worse, it can have a broader impact on organizational performance.

In Part 2 of our article, we will be highlighting the four main strategies we recommend to help mitigate the risks in the early stages of executive integration. In the meantime, if you would like to find out more, you can get directly in touch with us here.

As an executive or leader, time is the most valuable commodity, and yet it is in a fixed supply. While it is obvious that time management is important, sometimes we can lose track of what is a priority in the rush of our daily work. Harvard Business School conducted a study on CEOs and found that 79% of them worked an average of 7.8 hours over the weekend, on top of 9.7 hours per weekday. An executive role is evidently a consuming one, and so ensuring that you have control over that ever-ticking clock is a priceless skill.

A proact/react ratio is one way to measure how effectively you are using your time. If you

find yourself constantly interrupted by phone calls, knocks on your office door, and in meetings on short notice, then you may be in react mode. There are so many things coming at you at once that all you can do is react to them as and when.

But imagine how it would it feel to be making the calls you wish, having the meetings you think are important, and initiating action? If you find that you have time to think and engage with your staff, you may be in proact mode. You have control over your time and delegate it accordingly, being proactive and doing things before they have the chance to become something you have to respond to later.

So how do you move from react to proact? One way is to trust the people you

hire. Careful delegation to skilled, caring people with whom you have a great professional relationship with can give you the hours to do high level work that perhaps only you can do, by virtue of your position. This will allow for valuable uses of your time, such as more customer interaction, time to understand the competition, and developing a clear vision of what could be coming down the road.

Another thought is to set a one-hour time slot in your schedule at some point during every week, in which you schedule nothing. Do not catch up on e-mails and allow no interruptions. George Mitchell, former US Senator and Secretary of State, used this method, asking his executive assistant only to interrupt him during his thinking hour if his wife or the President of the United States called. Emergencies happen, but if you can be intentional about giving yourself time to think, read, and assimilate market data, you are moving into the proact realm.

Additionally, journaling as an executive can prove to be extremely beneficial for time management. It is a great way of strategizing for future endeavours, as you can reflect on things that have happened and find ways to mitigate potential problems in the future. On top of this, it will simultaneously help strengthen your leadership capabilities – the founder of Impraise argues that leaders need to be able to master the five soft skills of active listening, self-compassion, empathy, vulnerability and honesty. The privacy and ability to be honest when journalling allows leaders to develop and hone these skills.

If you need further guidance on how to start tackling your time, you can get in touch with us here.

“People leave managers, not companies,” is the mantra of Marcus Buckingham’s book on leadership[1]. And if I were to simplify this message even further, it would be to this: people are more likely to remain working for leaders that are approachable and inclusive.

In a time where workers are consistently changing jobs, retention strategies have become an integral part of many organizations. And even for those companies who have already placed a focus on retaining talent, they are now being faced with the struggle of combatting the rise of quiet quitting. The key to having an impact on both these issues lies in the hands of leaders – or, more specifically, in their ability to be approachable.

The idea of being an approachable leader has outdated connotations of being perceived as ‘weak’. Yet, Visiers study found that the second most commonly cited attribute of a bad manager was being unapproachable (47%).

The fact of the matter is that being welcoming and in a position of power will allow you to form real bonds with your team and be in tune with the culture being fostered within your company’s walls.

Achieving approachability is easier by breaking it down into three aspects:

Breaking down hierarchies

A simple culturally appropriate greeting is one of the oldest and most effective ways to be perceived as a welcoming and approachable person. Leaders who recognize their team members have a 63% higher chance of retaining them, so by making that effort to authentically greet your employees every morning and speak to them, they will be much more likely to want to remain working with you.

Knowing your team

Good leaders will take the time to know all the names of their team members. Great leaders will take it that one step further, and actively seek out ways to connect authentically by asking open-ended questions to learn about their interests beyond work. You can encourage your team to open up more by being transparent yourself – discuss your interests and tell stories about your life. Research from a team at Harvard University found that asking questions about people increases the likelihood of them having a positive impression of you. By demonstrating that you are making time to know the team members who work for you, you are reinforcing that they are valued and seen as individuals.

Having an open door

I remember giving an office tour to a new HR executive that I was trying to recruit, and when I walked past the CEO’s door, I noticed that it was wide open and he was in there at his desk. I gave an impromptu knock and poked my head in, and after a brief exchange I introduced him to the potential hire. Immediately he invited the both of us in and dropped what he was doing, and the three of us sat down for a good half hour as he got to know this HR exec.

All these years later I still remember this because I was struck by how proud it made me feel that the CEO took time out of his busy schedule to greet the potential new hire authentically and to learn about his background, despite not being on his schedule. Making a point of having your door always open – literally and metaphorically – can make employees feel they are invited to speak to those higher up rather than waiting to receive permission to seek their attention.

Interacting with these three components will help inspire genuine trust in you as a manager. There is always a risk for those in higher positions to be ‘cut out of the loop’ when it comes to finding the root cause of issues in the workplace, and so by being someone who team members feel they can trust, this risk is significantly mitigated.

However, in this endeavour, striking a balance is key. If you are seen to know more about one member of the team over another, this can come across as favouritism. Therefore, it is important to be aware of how much time you spend formally and informally with each member of your team. Managing the extent of your relationships with each team member is crucial and needs to be consistent and inclusive, as you have a duty to coach, develop and lead team members of all backgrounds and styles.

When it comes down to it, being present and front-line-facing can go a long way. If a leader is seen to be the wizard behind the curtain, then team members will feel a lack of motivation working under them. Make a point of getting to know new team members as they are onboarded, as well as checking in periodically to show that your interest is authentic. This will help nurture an overall inclusive culture in the workplace, and boost the productivity and engagement of employees, which leads to higher client satisfaction and higher operational performance.

It all starts from the top – if you are interested in discussing approachable leadership, I can be reached at marty@orgshakers.com

[1] Buckingham, M., 2001. First, Break All The Rules. London: Simon & Schuster Ltd.

‘Quiet quitting’ has been a buzzword in the corporate world recently – staff members are taking back their personal lives by setting boundaries on how much extra effort they put into their work. This has sparked many conversations as to why employees felt the need to quietly quit in the first place, and one such reason may be due to the rise of ‘quiet firing’.

The second phrase to be logged in the ‘quiet –’ saga, quiet firing shifts the focus to a managerial perspective, and refers to those leaders who are assigning some members of staff menial tasks, setting unrealistic expectations, and consistently denying them time off work. Essentially, instead of communicating with these employees to help them improve, they are quietly pushing them away until they finally decide to leave of their own accord.

While some leaders may be doing this consciously, this new phenomenon does bring into question whether managers who are being inattentive are at risk of unknowingly quietly firing their staff.

Being in a leadership role means you may not have a lot of time to spare, but a crucial part of being a manager is finding a balance between being attentive to those above and below you. Members of your team may feel they are being neglected due to a lack of direct engagement with them, and this can be perceived as quiet firing and can push people towards leaving. This is reinforced by Gallup’s report which found that 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. In other words, a manager has the largest effect on how engaged their employees are at work.

This highlights the importance of finding that time to offer clear and consistent feedback. Leaders who are essentially giving up on those workers who they deem as underperforming, instead of taking the time to tell them how to improve, are failing their staff.

Underperformance is a sign to managers that they are not being as attentive as necessary. The relationship between leader and worker needs to be nourished, and this nourishment comes from communication – through the implementation of a regular feedback session – and from clarity, as only about half of workers actually know what is expected of them.

Communication and clarity are especially important with the rise of hybrid and remote working models. Research shows that employees working from home often receive less performance feedback for their good work than those in the office, and this can be simply due to the fact that remote working removes the chance of bumping into one another. Gone are the days of grabbing someone for a quick chat or catching up by the water cooler. All these little opportunities for micro-feedback sessions are much harder to achieve through Zoom or Teams, as now, a formal effort has to be made to speak to colleagues.

Implementing ways of giving regular feedback to employees who work remotely will help mitigate the risk of quietly firing staff. On top of this, it helps enhance your culture – in the office and digitally – to be open and approachable, which can ultimately better staff engagement and improve the quality and quantity of their output.

If you need guidance on how to avoid falling into the trap of quiet firing, you can get in touch with us here.

The ability to be adaptable is becoming gold amongst leaders in the contemporary corporate world. A post-pandemic perspective has seen working life in a continuous state of flux, and if leaders want to stay on top of these shifting conditions, then they need to consider adopting a new, flexible management style.

One struggle that leaders may come across is the generational differences they face with their staff. Most people in leadership positions tend to be in their midlife, with statista finding that the average age of CEOs and CFOs in America was 54.1 and 48.9. Now, with Gen Z filtering into the workforce, along with them comes a new set of values that will likely differ to those in leadership positions. The recent ‘quiet quitting’ phenomenon is a prime example of this.

In order to overcome these potential barriers, leaders should start practicing a more adaptable approach to how they manage their people. This will allow them to create a common language to communicate with their younger staff so that they can respond to the needs of these employees more effectively and optimize their talent.

The Centre for Creative Leadership outlines three components of flexibility that leaders should incorporate to help them seize every opportunity:

Cognitive Flexibility

This is about using different thinking methods to be able to approach each problem from the best angle. Embedding these varying strategies and frameworks into their planning and decision-making will allow them to recognise when a change is needed. Leaders who are flexible and open with the way they think will be able to recognize new trends in the workplace and respond to them promptly.

Emotional Flexibility

Leaders who are empathetic towards periods of transition will be the most prepared to guide their staff through change, as well as manage their own potential feelings of angst and resistance. In this sense, those that are willing to show their own vulnerabilities can make their staff more willing to express theirs, and this leads to an open and honest culture in the workplace which allows for proper support through a transitional period.

Dispositional Flexibility

This concerns finding an equilibrium between being blindly positive and pessimistic. These leaders take on an optimistic perspective that is grounded in realism, and can acknowledge when a situation is bad but look ahead to how to make it better for the future. These leaders have a mindset which allows them to view change as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Leaders who are using all three of these components will be able to interact with change as and when it comes. And with a workforce who have emerged from lockdown with new perspectives on what it means to work , as well as an entirely new hybrid working model, learning to respond to change swiftly and effectively will allow leaders to excel, while also propelling their people and their company forwards.

To discuss these flexible leadership strategies further, you can contact me at stephanie.rodriguez@orgshakers.com

It is no secret that the workforce is changing, and with these changes comes a sharper focus on attraction and retention strategies. But between flexible working schedules and varying benefit schemes, employers are overlooking a key process that can help optimize their ability to secure the talent they have – management training.

Managers play a vital role in the creation of a positive workplace culture and engaging with employee concerns. They are the ‘connecting leaders’ for helping to build relationships between those at the top and bottom of the hierarchy. Ensuring that they are properly equipped to take on this role can help an organization thrive, as many potential problems can be avoided by strengthening the company at its managerial roots.

To begin with, leaders need to know how to go beyond the words of their company’s mission statement. While having a clear statement is excellent for highlighting what the business’s aims and values are, they need to be put into practice. Managers must know how to demonstrate these principles in their approaches and enact them in real-time to increase the trust staff place in them. By building this trust, organizations are more likely to increase retention rates, which can also reflect positively on their reputation when recruiting future staff.

Secondly, there is now an expectation for managers to have more personal and tailored relationships with employees. The rise of a carpe diem ideology post-pandemic has resulted in people wanting to make every day count by finding purpose in their work. Leaders have to be properly equipped with contemporary strategies to help remind them of this purpose in order to sustain engagement levels.

The needs of the workforce have shifted since the pandemic, and managers will require a refreshed set of training to keep up with this. By doing so, they mitigate the risk of employees quitting due to uncaring and uninspiring leaders, which was the third highest reason (34%) for people leaving their job according to a study by McKinsey.

Additionally, there also needs to be a focus on the retention of managers themselves. The CEB conducted research which found that 60% of all new managers fail within their first 24 months – and the main reason cited for this was a lack of proper training. Leadership roles come with a lot of responsibility, and so companies that prioritise giving their new managers the right tools and skills will help them seize all that the opportunity has to offer.

It is a chain reaction. Equip managers on how to engage with their people properly and they will avoid falling into the twenty-four-month trap. And having a good manager leads to a workforce who are engaged because they feel understood by their leader(s). Culture matters, and having a positive one focused on developing people, including mangers, will benefit colleagues and businesses.

Avoidance of legal issues is the final benefit. With the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) set to become firmer when filing discrimination cases against employers and overall trends in filing of claims, having managers who can correctly engage with employee concerns is more crucial than ever. Leaders who are perceived as approachable will be trusted with queries, and this helps avoid the use of third-party channels like the EEOC.

Navigating the heightened sensitivity that has developed post-pandemic is a delicate thing, and so requires a refreshed and expert approach. Having successfully worked with clients to build programmes that can identify and mitigate these issues, we see positive results in productivity, culture and risk management. Investing in managers is worth the expense.

Have you ever heard the phrase “quiet leaders”? This is a leadership style whose description may seem much more familiar than its name. Quiet leaders can be described as “managers who apply modesty, restraint, and tenacity to solve particularly difficult problems.” (Lagace, M.)

Badaracco (2003 ) explains, “Everyday work life is full of right-versus-right decisions. In fact, it sometimes seems that these hard trade-offs are delegated downward from bosses to people in the middle of organizations. In these cases, it does little good to tell people to screw up their courage and do the right thing. The essence of the problem is that several right things—obligations to owners, employees, communities and one’s own values—are clashing with each other. Quiet leaders also recognize the full complexity and uncertainty that govern so much of life and work today.” He goes on to offer five basic guidelines for quiet leaders:

Five Basic Guidelines

Don’t Kid Yourself – “…make plenty of room for the unexpected.”
Have Some Skin in the Game – “…look for ways to channel self-interest in ways that also serve others.”
Buy Time – “Time gives people a chance to assess their real obligations and gives sound instincts a chance to emerge.”
Drill Down – “…into the full complexities of the problem…”
Bend the Rules and Look for Compromises – “Responsible behaviour in some difficult situations requires a little wiggle room.”

How does the concept of the quiet leader spark your thoughts about leadership? Is this a style that describes you or a leader you work with? Is it a style you find appealing?

Taking a moment to explore different or unfamiliar leadership styles can be a great way to learn and grow as a leader. It can also be a way to reenergize a leadership journey.

If you would like guidance on how to become a quiet leader, get in touch with us here.

Now that you have been introduced to what life as a first-time CEO has in store, here are three recommendations for emerging CEOs:

Build, develop and lead through your leadership team

Building their leadership team has always been an important part of the CEO job; but the composition and purpose of this team is changing as businesses themselves take on a wider understanding of their purpose.

Traditionally a CEO’s goal was to develop a “high performing team,” in which each member was responsible for a different function that created value for investors and customers. But thanks to a growing emphasis on Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) considerations, today’s leadership team must now serve a wider caste of stakeholders than its predecessors. Employees, for example, are now considered primary and equal stakeholders to investors and customers. Similarly, many investors are now evaluating companies based on their social and environmental relationships with the communities in which they operate.

As a result, modern CEOs need to build “high value creating” teams, in which success is measured by the team’s ability to create simultaneous value for a broad array of stakeholders. A side effect of this widened imperative is that success is no longer measured by looking at how individual members of the leadership team execute their individual functions. Instead, a successful leadership team has to work interactively, across functions, to ensure that it represent the interests of (and creates value for) all stakeholders.

For first-time or new CEOs, building a value-creating leadership team—and making sure that you get the right people on it—is crucial to your ability to focus broadly across the needs of the organization and to increase value by steering company purpose and culture. But it is not easy to do. A Systemic Leadership Team coach can be invaluable in helping the CEO build, lead and motivate the perfect team.

Build informal relationships with individual board members

The board can be an excellent source of guidance for CEOs, and newly appointed CEOs should go out of their way to build informal relationships with individual board members who can provide the advice, feedback, and support that CEOs often fail to receive from other members of their organizations.

But building these relationships can be harder than it sounds. Your board members, after all, do not work in the office down the hall; they may not even live in the same country. This is why close relationships between CEOs and board members rarely just fall into place like they often do between CEOs and key members of the leadership team. Instead, building relationships with board members often requires conscious effort. New CEOs will need to go out of their way to creatively engage their directors on a regular basis outside of the formal strictures of the boardroom.

Work with a coach

Executive coaches are an excellent resource for first-time CEOs. As neutral third-party observers, coaches provide the kind of constructive feedback and skills training that CEOs, as bosses, often struggle to get from their team members. They also help CEOs improve their skills in conflict management, responsibility delegation, time management, and listening—all of which are necessary for new CEOs to successfully adapt to the role.

The purpose of executive coaching is to increase performance by improving emotional intelligence, which leads to a more empathic and self-aware leader. Even the best CEOs can get better at their jobs. Some of the most influential CEOs in the last decades—Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt among them—have benefited tremendously from executive coaching.

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The CEO job can be one of the most rewarding jobs in business. It is also unquestionably one of the most difficult. Incoming first-time CEOs should expect the role to bring a variety of changes to their lives, most of them positive, some of them negative, others downright confusing. By surrounding yourself with trusted advisors, by consulting mentors, and by hiring a coach, both new and seasoned CEOs can minimize their isolation and get the feedback they need for success.

If you are reading this, chances are you have encountered articles telling you that a good chief executive officer (CEO) needs to be a decisive, results-oriented leader who can simultaneously articulate a strategic vision for the company, embody its culture and values, and represent it to outside entities—all while driving growth.

You probably also know that CEOs walk a tightrope between the often-contradictory imperatives of their job. They must be optimistic, capable of seeing opportunities wherever they look, and at the same time be capable of assessing the risks that lie beneath those opportunities. They must be great listeners and team-builders, able to synthesize information and opinions from a variety of sources; but they must also be decisive, willing to make decisions without consensus in moments of informational uncertainty.

The CEO position is comprised of psychological and emotional complexities; knowing what a CEO does and knowing how being a CEO feels are very different, and making the leap to the lead executive chair is one of the single most challenging job changes of most CEOs’ careers.

So, here are eight things you should know when making the transition:

Being boss-less is not all fun and games

Most first-time CEOs come to the role after decades of hard work—decades during which they had peers with whom they could informally trade feedback and superiors to whom they could refer certain hard-to-make decisions. The fact that CEOs have neither bosses nor peers within the company constitutes a real and drastic change, one that requires adjustment and often drives the social isolation, lack of feedback, and fear of decisiveness that first-time CEOs frequently experience.

Responsibility can be isolating and painful

Almost by definition, when you have boss, you also have someone to whom you can defer responsibility for the most consequential or challenging decisions. But when you are the CEO, you are that boss. For many executives, this is something they have longed for: the moment when they get to give orders without having to run them by someone else. But with this authority comes an intense emotional burden: suddenly you are the person making decisions—often based on limited information—that can have serious ramifications for the company’s health and the quality of your people’s lives. Indeed, at times you will have to choose between those exact things. Even experienced CEOs can find the weight of authority incredibly taxing, especially in times of crisis.

People will treat you differently

CEOs hold an almost reverential position in many companies. There are several explanations for this fact, but one of them is that it is the simple consequence of power disparity. If you are an employee, the CEO of your company is not just in charge of what you do at your job every day, they are in charge of whether you have your job at all. And this fact understandably influences the ways in which employees interpret and behave around their CEO.

People will do what you say

One by-product of your authority as a CEO is that what you say—and how you look when you say it—matters more than it did earlier in your career. For this reason, experienced CEOs are often quite careful when they speak; they know that even a spur-of-the-moment idea or opinion can, if voiced, have lasting impacts on the company’s culture, behavior, and reputation. As a new CEO, you can’t bounce ideas off just anyone. You can’t have emotional reactions around just anyone. You must calculate the potential interpretations and ramifications of every idea and opinion before you voice them.

People will act as you act

As the CEO, you embody—whether you intend to or not—the culture you want to see in your company. The way you speak, the way you comport yourself, the kinds of financial decisions you make on and off the job—all of these things send a message to the people who work for you. You may be astonished to learn, as a new CEO, that your employees talk about the model of car you drive and how much you paid for your house. But they will; and they’ll infer things about you and your values from that information.

Culturally speaking, CEOs need to understand (and leverage) the fact that their behavior has a symbolic dimension. Getting rid of corporate jets, for example, may have a tiny impact on the bottom line in the greater scheme of things, but it can go a long way in revising the tone of the company’s culture.

You are the external face of the company

Your own employees are not the only ones hanging on your every word and deed. As most first-time CEOs know, chief executives spend a significant amount of time and energy representing the company to the public—that is, to the media, to investors, and to stakeholder communities. But it is important to note that as the CEO, you are always serving in this capacity. Your life is now a symbol for something larger, and there are certain penalties that come with being a symbol. You give up a significant amount of anonymity, for example, and you give up certain freedoms that come with that anonymity. For some new CEOs and their families, this takes some getting used to.

You are overseeing something that pre-exists you

If you are coming into the company as a CEO, you are inheriting years, even decades, of relationships, precedents, expectations, and practices—many of which will never be described to you.

You will not have total control over your success and failure

Our culture tends to credit an organization’s successes and failures to the person in charge. If the company performs well, the CEO is applauded. If it stumbles, the CEO is blamed. But factors beyond the CEO’s control can dictate both successes and failures. As a CEO, you will be blamed for things that you feel like you had no control over, things you feel like you inherited, just as you’ll be applauded for successes that may not be directly linked to your actions. Either way, you must understand that the core responsibility of your job is to focus on creating value in the space between these extremes.