
What Sets Successful CEOs Apart - happy-go-lucky
https://hbr.org/2017/05/what-sets-successful-ceos-apart
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11thEarlOfMar
Um... Don't they need a control group of randomly selected persons?

'Decisive' Ok, but are they more decisive than a baseball coach?

'Engaging for Impact' More or less than a car salesperson?

'Adapting Proactively' Homeless persons adapt, and can be surprisingly
resourceful, too.

'Delivering Reliably' Most manufacturing managers have this trait, too. If
they don't, they aren't manufacturing managers for long.

From the results of the study, one would infer that if they adopt these 4
traits, they will become CEOs. But that's laughable. These 4 traits are
supplemental and supportive to getting there, but not causal. In my opinion, a
CEO needs to be driven. They need to be going somewhere that they can convince
a lot of other different types of people to follow them to. They have to have
a sense of agency that leads them to want to be in charge. Only then do those
4 behaviors make a difference.

This article is like taking a bunch of measurements from professional athletes
to determine what made them athletes, ignoring that all the physical abilities
and training could not get them there without the drive to achieve. That has
to come first.

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nickthemagicman
I love your response. I hate vague sentimentalities like this.

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api
This is most business writing. Most of it is cargo cultism built from post
rationalization of survivorship bias. There are so many factors that go into
success or failure that it's very hard to ascribe causality, so superstition
and folk wisdom prevails.

You find this in lots of other areas with similar characteristics. All
"theories of history," etc.

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unclebucknasty
I generally agree. OTOH, it's not as if this stuff cannot be measured at all.

The problem is that what are really just "somewhat interesting observations"
tend to be sold (or interpreted) as much more "actionable" than they really
are. That is, the implication is that if you go out and do these four things,
you'll be successful too.

Seems like 99% of business and self-help advice boils down to this formula.

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api
The lack of science in business blows me away given the money involved.

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tlogan
Typical HBR article.

Sure. Decisiveness, adaptability, reliability, etc. are great.

But the biggest problem is when the CEO is decisive, the CEO is engaging the
team, the CEO is adopting to environment and the CEO is reliable - but the CEO
is doing it all wrong. I.e., the CEO just doesn't have a clue.

As Napoleon said (and many others): whoever is industrious and stupid should
be shot on the spot.

The best CEOs are the one who are lazy and very smart. Lazy? Because they will
delegate their vision to other people. Smart? The CEO will have the right
vision and delegate to the right people.

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deepsun
Disagree about lazy CEO. I worked in a startup with lazy CEO, and it was a
disaster. I also worked in a startup with hard-working CEO, who knew every
single knob of our product, and it was much better.

> Because they will delegate their vision to other people.

Other people means you, even if it's totally outside your area of competence,
but rather CEO's.

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tlogan
With "lazy CEO" I'm referring to other myth which is talking how successful
CEOs are waking up at 4:30am, then they go run, mediate for 90 minutes, don't
drink coffee, don't eat meat, and then work will 10:30pm. Every day.

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sjg007
Yeah this is not sustainable or real. It's a myth.

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Animats
One of the more concrete remarks there is that successful CEOs spent about 50%
of their time on long-term issues. Less successful CEOs spent much less. One
of the traps of management is being driven by incoming problems. That's part
of management, but it's not the biggest part, especially as you move up.

There's also the fact that if you spend most of your time dealing with
problems, you spend too much time talking to the screwups in your
organization. Spending time with the people who aren't having problems is
important. They're the ones that can move things forward.

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mck-
> Only 7% of the high-performing CEOs we studied had an undergraduate Ivy
> League education, and 8% of them didn’t graduate from college at all.

If you confuse correlation with causation, you could say that it's better to
be a drop out than graduate from Ivy League

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ec109685
Ivy League school graduates make up much less than 8% of the working age
population, so it over represents.

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Ma8ee
In this case the relevant number is what percentage of all CEO's that are Ivy
League graduates.

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Steeeve
I find the skepticism in this discussion interesting.

While it may seem obvious that a decisive leader is a better leader, it's not
necessarily a trait that floats to the top of the list. The same goes for all
of these traits.

I have had the opportunity to work under leadership that exhibits all of these
traits and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the combination is rare
and it is very effective.

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simonswords82
I agree, I suspect most of the people on HN have never worked with a good CEO,
or perhaps in or around a senior management role.

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paulpauper
1\. vision (Elon musk , Walt Disney, Steve Jobs)

2\. Calculated risk taking (Meg Whitman buying paypal in 2002, Zuckerberg
buying Instagram in 2013 when everyone said it was too expensive ) In both
instances, although there were risks, they were still relatively small
compared to the parent company.

3\. the business itself being a success. A good CEO can only do so much if the
business is not viable or is struggling due to various macro factors outside
of the CEO's control.

4\. All-around good execution (Jeff Bezos comes to mind here)

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ThomPete
A succesful business. That's about it. In most cases.

Sure there are anomalies, but in most cases being a CEO for a growing business
in a growing industry rather than some unique talent.

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cbsmith
One of these days, I'm going to read an article like this, and it is going to
say something like, "the people that work for them" or "the organization".

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CalRobert
Confirmation bias, mostly.

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Jerry2
Don't forget selection bias. HBR is infamous for these types of articles and
studies. They select a bunch of successful CEOs or business persons, they
figure out what they have in common and then they release a list of traits or
practices that make them successful.

~~~
AznHisoka
Sounds like survivor bias. It was the same thing that made the book "Good to
great" complete nonsense!

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CalRobert
Yeah, good point. Survivor bias is closer.

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vikascoder
What sets successful CEOs apart? : Luck

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unclebucknasty
Some truth to that. Then again, you see some who are serially successful.

That brings up another factor that is probably more important than luck: other
people's belief that the CEO will be successful.

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mathgeek
I wonder how often this is a result of (or at least heavily influenced by) the
luck of being born to a certain set of parents / social circles.

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grandalf
The ideal skill set for a CEO varies dramatically at different stages of
company growth.

There are likely some universals, but those are the least useful areas to
consider and the most hand wavy.

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anjc
I love the comments here. This is typical business bullshit....where's the
control group....nm the significant amount of data and analysis, it's
_actually_ all about luck...typical HBR...

Do you dimwits understand the general concept of research at all?

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thinbeige
Slightly OT: Would love know how many of those who commented here are or were
CEOs.

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HacklesRaised
And if they don't have innate leadership qualities:

Example Integrity Respect

You have just created a narcissist asshole who blames everyone else for their
failure before they move on to their next 'I am a successful CEO venture'.

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throwme_1980
Wow, finally an honest article, why hold on to mediocre employees , no need to
buy donuts or pretend this is a 'people focus' company. What matters is your
bottom line

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dexterdog
Buying donuts makes people happy at work. Not buying them means that anybody
who wants one will have to go out of his way to get one.

I teched for an HR firm years ago. Company lunch every day. People spent half
the time on lunch vs going out and talked with their co-workers usually about
work or took care of the water cooler talk then. It was just one of the
checkboxes on the list of reasons not to leave. It was definitely a profit for
the company in the end.

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m3kw9
How about the one trait that is always underrated - Luck

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kwhitefoot
Before asking this question we need to to ask what counts as successful. There
can be multiple definitions depending on who you ask.

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YouTubecomments
Government subsidies

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chrisgd
Mostly luck

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elchief
HBR is full of shit

\- me, MBA

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0xbear
What sets successful CEOs apart is that everyone quickly forgets about
unsuccessful ones.

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olivermarks
tldr "In the end, our research shows, leadership success is not a function of
unalterable traits or unattainable pedigree. Nor is there anything exotic
about the key ingredients: decisiveness, the ability to engage stakeholders,
adaptability, reliability.

While there is certainly no “one size fits all” approach, focusing on these
essential behaviors will improve both a board’s likelihood of choosing the
right CEO—and an individual leader’s chances of succeeding in the role."

Somewhat self serving for the authors research/advisory company IMO and
surprisingly non specific based on the confidence of the headline

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clock_tower
What I'm most surprised by is their straw-man alternative: "unalterable traits
or unattainable pedigree," _in 2017_.

"I say, Langley, HBR is pure bosh. They've no respect at all for proper
breeding, and their attitude towards Mr. Spencer's impeccable theories is
shocking, really."

You'd think they'd disparage education, money, and connections, instead of
inborn character and aristocratic bloodline... (Unless, of course, you _do_
need education, money, and connections, and they want some safer strawman to
knock down.)

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honestoHeminway
Earn money, reduce risks. Ballmer and not steve jobs did that.

So i guess the answer- besides CEO-people manipulation skills is too think
ahead of societys development, anticipate future demands, and invest there,
while ignoring the crowd yelling insanity.

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davebryand
They forgot the question mark at the end of that title...

And the answer is: they don't read hbr.org

