My experience working with CEOs

Let me share some of my experience working with 6 different CEOs in past 15 years, what they had in common? do I see a pattern in their style of leadership? And how I think they will go from here? It may seem that I am trying to cross some of sort of line here, trying to comment on people whom I reported into or a bit pre-mature for someone who hasn't played the role of CEO before, but hey, I am just expressing my opinion based on my world view and not a judgment.

Out of 6 CEOs, 3 of them made is big, growing organization revenue from few 100 thousand dollars to millions, creating jobs for about 1000 people, achieving their personal and professional goals. While all the successful CEOs had "grit" as a common trait, all of the other aspects about them were distinctly different from each other, one of the CEOs was a super nice people manager and down-to-earth personality but wasn't probably a champion in sales, another one was an insensitive people manager but a sales super star. One of them was great with growth strategy and sales, but fell short on operational excellence and follow-through.

If you had an opinion that a CEO needs to be super good in everything he does, he needs to be an expert in all aspects of the game, that is not the way it is. Some of their great qualities overshadows their inadequacy in few areas and still make things work.

1. The CEO who was insensitive to people (going around hurting and ridiculing people at his will) still managed to keep a bunch of smart guys around him, because people wanted to learn from him "how to sell" because he was great at it, so they ignored his rants / tantrums / idiosyncrasies. .
2. Second was a great people manager, super nice to people and had unmatched grit, even though you may not learn new functional skills from him, you may still decide to work for him, because he would treat you with at most respect and provide all the freedom for you to perform.

It has been an interesting journey so far for me, and I think the CEO who is cognizant of his strengths and weaknesses and knows how to build a team which can compliment him, will have the ability to take their business to next level, and those who decide to ignore their limitations and keep their egos before anything else, will eventually fall or just stagnate.

I understand this blog could be missing several other dimensions on how a CEO's office works, but idea was just to share some quick thoughts on different types of CEOs I have dealt with. A comprehensive one will definitely come your way, when I am able to connect more and more dots in our corporate world.

"Happy Selling Value"