“CEOS must learn to manage the business, self and team”

Successful CEOS should have core leadership skills such as taking calculated risks, making ideas to reality, and ability to read people. In an established organization, a professional should be able to learn through experience, mentoring from others, and coaching

SANDEEP K KRISHNAN

Can leadership be just about skills? No. It is a combination of skills, integrity, relationship management, vision and more. The role of a chief operating officer ( CEO) however differs depending on the kind of organization he or she is leading. Sandeep K Krishnan in his book,

talks about how a start-up leader requires different skills from a leader in a public sector organization or other industries. In an email interview, Krishnan, a senior director at People Business, a global leadership and human resources consulting firm explores the nuances in leadership. Edited excerpts: investors, government. In case of a family member who is a CEO, the first part is to establish the credibility as a leader as we call it “The tests of a prince”. Once this is established, the focus is more or less same as an outsider CEO.

In an established organization, successful CEOS should have core leadership skills. Some of the core aspects here are taking calculated risks, making ideas to reality, and ability to read people. In an established organization, a professional should be able to gain the leadership skills through experience, mentoring from others, specialized learning programs, and coaching. A CEO should have built strong professional and personal credibility over the years to lead an established organization. At the senior levels, where you are groomed to take over the CEO position, leaders often get coached in specific areas like conflict management, public communication, board management, team engagement. My research for the book also shows that you have higher chance of becoming a CEO in an organization if you are a graduate from a premier business school, have spent a long tenure in the organization, and have established your credibility consistently by delivering business results.

With many Start up companies, the image of a typical CEO is blurring. You have professionals in their mid 20s and early 30s as founder CEOS. Definitely, they have to scale up their business acumen and leadership skills fast not to become a burden for their companies! We are living in a VUCA world. Business environment, technology, workforce demographics, political environment are all changing in a rapid face. Unless you are adaptable and constantly in alignment with the environment, it is difficult for businesses to survive. For navigating their ships in the right direction, the CEOS have no choice but be a lifelong learner. Learn how to manage the business, self and the team. The definition of a good leader is widely debated. We have a wide variety of good leaders as we see in the business context. Ratan Tata, Narayana Murthy, Steve Jobs, Jack Welch – all considered exemplary business leaders.

A good leader or a good management style should always be seen from what matters in the context of that organization. A very successful leader in one organization may be a terrible one in another. However, some of the leadership competencies matters across – moral compass, strategic thinking, ability to manage others, and making things happen. So the statement – Good CEOS are good leaders, by default – only caveat is that the definition of a good leader is very contextual. There are three key challenges for a CEO while scaling up

a. Creating a vision for growth: Making a compelling growth proposition

b. Garnering resources : Ensuring right people, technology, and financial resources

c. Execution: Ensuring that the plans for growth are achieved. Most CEOS fail in ensuring successful execution. Vision is like a light house for the organization. This is the broad direction that you would like to navigate. Ability to provide a vision or I would say your own “Big Goals” to the organization and aligning everybody to achieve it is definitely a key skill for a CEO. Two key skills that might be more important for CEOS in this sector would be the ability to work and influence two different social paradigms – the grassroots where your organization’s efforts are and with the corporate and the agencies who fund your organization. Two, managing accountability. The CEO should be able to articulate the change that the organization is able to bring both qualitatively and quantitatively. This is difficult and often may lead to conflicts with the funding partners if not done diligently.