As a mission-driven CEO, your work isn’t just about profits or performance—it’s about purpose. The choices you make, the culture you foster, and the vision you create all have a profound ripple effect. At the heart of this impact lies two often-overlooked, yet essential elements: love and legacy.
I loved sailing at summer camps growing up. It was similar to flying and taught me many valuable life lessons. In sailing, being "in irons" refers to when a boat is pointed directly into the wind, causing it to lose momentum and become temporarily unsteerable. For mission-driven CEOs, this scenario serves as a powerful metaphor for periods in business where we feel stuck or stalled, especially in uncertain times. Just as a sailor must adjust their sails and angle to catch the wind again, leaders must continually re-evaluate strategies to align their leadership team to boldly move forward. Staying "in irons" is not just inefficient; it’s potentially hazardous, as it leaves us vulnerable to shifting conditions without the ability to steer effectively.
We are at the end of our second quarter, 50% through 2023. What a year it's been!
This is designed to share some critical insights and questions to help you grow as a leader and increase your impact as we move into the second half of the year.
We are excited to share our updated BHAG - We made our BHAG measurable, and it is a result of a significant takeaway from our global Scaling Up coaching work - people flourish when they have a good job. Everything begins with a good job, and the CEOs we partner with share our passion for creating jobs that allow their team to flourish.
Why build a leadership team based upon a coaching-style leadership? For one, coaching opens up a two-way dialog that can lead to healthy, constructive feedback. Adopting a coaching leadership style encourages employees to learn, which allows them to have the breathing room to explore shifts in the business environment. In an organization focused on coaching, consistent and regular feedback schedule should provide employees with a comfort zone that allows them to discuss what they need to contribute, including a possible performance shift from their supervisor, allowing both employee and supervisor to grow from the experience.
When it comes to building a successful high-growth business, even the most detailed business plan can be derailed by hiring the wrong employees to carry out the corporate vision. In fact, the estimated cost of a mishire can be 5 to 27 times the amount of the employee’s salary, according to Topgrading.com. Not only are there hard costs involved in hiring and firing employees, but mishired personnel can also cause a ripple effect by lowering morale and hampering sales and performance results. A really bad hire can even cause A-level employees to leave your business in search of better opportunities.
People are yearning for connection in these unpredictable times, and as you continue to lead your business, we wanted to share some best practices that we use for planning events with purpose. Before beginning the process of planning an event, it is crucial to understand the motivation behind it. Having a clear vision for the purpose of your event is the foundation of a successful experience for the hosts, vendors, and attendees.
In times of great stress or in times of great success, executive-level decision making can feel more weighty than it does when business operations are running “as normal.” In difficult times, an ill-advised choice could jeopardize jobs or even an entire business. In times of surplus, executives may find themselves making decisions based upon the temporary high fueled by success-generated endorphins.
The concept of corporate culture has been a hot topic among executives since long before the onset of the global pandemic. When Jeff Weiner, the former CEO of LinkedIn who was once named Entrepreneur of the Year, first joined LinkedIn, he met with his leadership team to discuss exactly what corporate culture would look like for the social media giant.
At the PFD Group, effective communication is one of our core values and we also recommend it as a key success driver for our high-growth clients.
But what is effective communication?
We find many CEOs theoretically understand the importance of great communication both internally and externally, but they sometimes flounder when it comes to execution.
In times of great stress, business leaders often find comfort in time-honored sayings such as staying the course or following the plan.
These terms have become cliches for a reason–because they work. It is important to have a direction and to follow a plan especially when the future looks murky.
For a plan to be truly successful, however, it must also leave room for experimentation.
When it comes to building the ideal executive leadership team, it can help to take a few lessons from the multibillion-dollar film industry.
In the “industry,” Hollywood magazines are chock full of stories of “A-list” actors and directors whose collaboration should guarantee movie success but instead, their misaligned relationships tanked hundred-million-dollar films.
In the corporate world, building an incorrectly aligned executive leadership can be an equally costly mistake. As a strategic coach who has worked with companies in a diverse set of industries with diverse teams, I’ve seen mishires in key senior roles cost companies hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of dollars in lost revenue.
Your first step in building the ideal leadership team and attracting a cast of “A-list” players is fully defining your company’s core values.
No doubt, the past two years have been incredibly difficult ones and just when we thought we might be turning a corner, the world has been cast into a new set of challenges that don’t appear to have any easy answers.
Despite the uncertainty, times of great challenge can also be times of great opportunity. Especially for those who are prepared. Ahead are five trends to be on the lookout for this year and recommendations on how you can thrive.
