If you want to be a highly successful CEO you will have to be a very good leader. This is obvious. The best leaders have specific practices that will make companies great. However, what they do not do is also really important. You want to be sure that you avoid falling in the pitfalls that are sometimes logical for you but that really hurt the entire company.
If you want to be highly successful you need to maximize efficiency while you waste little time. Although various different things can be said about the topic, most successful CEOs and leaders never do the following.
Here are 5 things successful business leaders would never do, or at least try very hard not to.
#1 Being A Jack Of All Trades
In order to be a good CEO you do not want to be involved in many company actions in an active way. Grooming employees for specific leadership positions in every single firm division is a necessity. Be smart and build a company around different individuals. You want to delegate instead of trying to do as much as possible yourself. Let’s say that you run a team that writes professional papers for client. In this case you cannot write the papers, check them and keep in touch with students while you run finances. Do delegate and have specific people trained for specific tasks. Great leaders create other leaders and oversee them.
“…each individual can only do one thing well. He can’t do lots of things. If he tries, he will be jack of all trades, and master of none.” ― Socrates, The Republic
#2 Being Focused On Perfect Decisions
Deferring taking actions until something perfect is found can be the downfall of a company. In various cases the perfect answer would simply take way too long to find. Having a good plan that will be executed fast is normally better than creating a truly perfect plan that will be executed in around one month.
“Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses.
Focus on your character, not your reputation.
Focus on your blessings, not your misfortunes.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
#3 Answering All Questions And Explaining All Decisions
CEOs are responsible for the company’s direction. They retain people that are seen as being the best and they hire talent in order to be sure their vision will be implemented. Even so, they will not be responsible for absolutely all the decisions and never have to answer absolutely all the questions that appear. When employees are allowed to ask the CEO a question every single time they have no answer, much of the time will be spent doing work that the staff has to do. Employees need to be able to find answers alone since this improves company efficiency and people can grow to be future leaders.
“The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin
#4 Attend Way Too Many Meetings
One of the huge problems with many small to medium sized companies is that the CEO simply has way too many low-level meetings. The effective leaders will love the 5 minutes briefings more than the one hour meetings. You want to know exactly what meetings have to be attended as they are vital for the direction of the firm. This is a vital skill that will need to be learned.
“The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.” ― Will Rogers
#5 Limiting Communication
As an efficient CEO you will avoid the low level questions and the really long meetings but you will never shut yourself from your employees. It is very bad when you do not talk with your employees and you limit communication channels available. As an example, if you want to send out a memo, use more mediums to do so as this is going to increase the possibility you will get feedback and the staff will actually see what you sent.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ― George Bernard Shaw
Your turn: What things do you believe successful leaders should never do?
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