Leadership Style Making Extraordinary People

Many people claim they deserve to be in a leadership position. In an organization, the top leaders are part of the C-Suite. They are your Chief Executive Officer – CEO, Chief Financial Officer – CFO, Chief Operating Officer – COO, Chief Technology Officer – CTO, etc. The CEO is the chief of the chiefs and the others report to him. In many large companies, there is a board of directors. That board hires and fires the CEO. These are the top leaders of any corporation. They create policy, allocate resources and develop strategies to carry out the enterprise’s mission.
To make it to the C-Suite, you have to have a certain mindset. It is a mindset most don’t have. There are two things most people do not understand about the C-Suite. Yet, they still believe they can function at this level. There lies the dilemma.
The first thing is the idea or image of being a leader. Most people believe leaders exist to tell others what to do. If you are telling your people what to do, either you are a lousy leader or you hired the wrong people. Either way it is the result of leadership skills or lack thereof. Steve Jobs said it best. “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
Bob Weissman, the former CEO of Dun