My thoughts in response to this new HBR article.
I agree with HBR. New CEOs, and any new leader, need strong social and interpersonal skills. They must be excellent communicators and manage diverse stakeholders simultaneously.
Truly knowing a team member where they are is better than wishing they are who you want them to be. We can dedicate resources to help them grow into their best self, but we need to be clear-sighted on who they are now.
Think of the 4-dimensional chess match that is an NFL season. A coach has players with differing abilities. However, those abilities are not static. Any given Sunday, a player may not be 100%. They may be hurt, going through a divorce, have a depressive episode, or have an undiagnosed concussion from the previous week. The coach must know them intimately: personally, professionally, and physically. The leader must consider the odds of how this player will perform today. They must consider how their performance relates to all the other players’ limitations and strengths on that Sunday. The coach must consider these skill sets’ relationship to the opposing team's strengths and weaknesses. Then these strategies need to be calculated for the rest of the season, or even the next five.
This is how “new-age CEOs” must listen to and treat their teams to extract the most value for the company and its mission. It is 5-dimensional chess.
These skills in C-suite executives have been lacking for decades, if not centuries. Emotional intelligence is not a taught skill in most business schools. But it is a skill that can be improved upon.
Multidisciplinary talent is more valuable than ever. The ability to analyze spreadsheets is fine, but that data, if not seen from the interplay of countless other resources, including real people, is meaningless.
If an executive does not see their team as individuals with their own complicated decisions to make concerning the organization, they are on “the wrong seat on the bus” and should be placed in another role. This executive may have incredible value in other ways, but managing people today is more critical than working numbers.
This need was already known by many. The pandemic is another excuse for how it “revealed unseen” conditions in the market. This is not surprising to some, but I am glad it is receiving attention.
To be good at these skills, we need to Listen. Do not speak. Listen with your body.
Be an active listener, as we say in theater. Engage with the whole person in communicating. In Zoom meetings, active listening can be difficult. Use video instead of audio. Seeing a person in real-time allows us to pick up on unspoken communication signals quickly. This way, we can communicate better and empathize more.
-Adam David Jones, CEO and Founder of Zeer, www.zeersafe.com
