Skip to main content

Six Mindsets That Distinguish The Best Leaders

The key takeaway from the book, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish The Best Leaders From The Rest, is the best CEOs think and act differently than the rest across each of six key CEO responsibilities, including: 

  1. Setting the direction (vision, strategy, resource allocation)
  2. Aligning the organization (culture, organization design, talent)
  3. Mobilizing through leaders (composition, teamwork, operating rhythm)
  4. Engaging the board (relationships, capabilities, meetings)
  5. Connecting with stakeholders (social purpose, interaction, moments of truth)
  6. Managing personal effectiveness (time and energy, leadership model, perspective) 

Starting with a pool of more than 2,400 corporate leaders, McKinsey & Company senior partners and authors Carolyn DewarScott Keller, and Vik Malhotra extensively screened the group to identify the elite core, then sat down with 67 of them for multiple hours to talk about their methods. 

“Despite their different approaches, every CEO at every stage of their tenure meaningfully tended to all six responsibilities. The best CEOs kept all six plates spinning at all times, even if the external and internal environment meant that some needed to be spun faster or slower than others,” explain the authors. 

“Keep in mind that we’re not suggesting that the best CEOs excel in every aspect of the role—in fact, we’ve yet to meet one who does. Rather, the best CEOs are excellent in a few areas, and do a solid if not exemplary job in the others.” 

The 67 in-depth interviews included conversations with some of the world’s most prominent and inspirational current and former CEOs, including Reed Hastings of Netflix, Sony’s Kaz Harai, and General Motors’ Mary Barra. 

Be sure to check out the book's Appendix 2 where you’ll find the bios of these 67 interviewed CEOs along with key facts about each – including their milestone leadership impacts on their respective organizations. 

CEO Excellence is a fascinating, inspiring, revealing, lesson-packed read for any leader who wants to hone their skills to achieve leadership excellence. 

It’s also a critically timely must-read, when you consider that 30% of Fortune 500 CEOs last fewer than three years in the role, and two out of five new CEOs are deemed to be failing within 18 months. On the flipside, CEOs whose companies rank in the top 20% of financial performance in their industries are generating 2.8 times more annual returns to their shareholders than their peers. In fact, the extent to which the CEOs themselves are significant predictors of company performance is higher than at any point in history.


Carolyn Dewar

Scott Keller


Vikram (Vik) Malhotra

Awhile back, the authors shared these insights:

Question: Which of the six responsibilities of the CEO do many CEOs find most daunting and why?

 

Dewar/Keller/Malhotra: Like a sailor will have to tend to different things based on what’s happening in their environment, the relative importance of each of the six responsibilities varies with every CEO’s unique context. Having said that, what’s changed most in the environment for all CEOs over the past decade is the extent to which, and how, their role interfaces with external stakeholders.

 

The pressures and paradoxes involved in orienting oneself and one’s company towards environmental, social, and political issues are ever heightened by the increased transparency, speed of transmission, and accountability that social media enables. “How broadly should I think about ‘purpose’?”, “When should and shouldn’t I/we take a public stand on societal issues?”, and “How do I ensure we’re prepared for an inevitable crisis?” are all questions that weigh heavily on the minds of today’s CEOs.

Question: There is so much to learn from CEO Excellence. How do you recommend readers read the book and use it to apply the learnings? 

Dewar/Keller/Malhotra: Firstly, for CEOs, we hope the book is something they can not only learn a lot from on the first pass through but also use as a practical “how to” resource when their context changes and certain elements of the role require a level of excellence than may not have been required in the past. 

Secondly, because the leadership lessons are those forged among the highest profile, highest stakes, and most complex leadership positions, we see that many of the lessons also apply to the vast majority of leadership roles. Viewed through this lens, we hope any leader will find it helpful. 

Take the mindset of “be bold”, for example. Any leader would do well to ask themselves: Are they pursuing a direction that fills an unmet need, uses their unique capabilities, and is driven by a noble purpose? Have they involved a group of people in shaping the vision and therefore are emotionally invested in wanting to help make it a reality? Are they taking actions that are unquestionably big “needle movers”? Have they redirected time, energy, talent, and finances away from lower priority pursuits towards taking these actions? And so on.

Question: Of the many CEO biographies included in the book, which one or two of those CEOs inspire you the most and why?

 

Dewar/Keller/Malhotra: Honestly, we can say that every CEO inspired us with their stories, and each in unique ways. When Marillyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin walked us through the lessons she learned as she responded to then President-elect Trump’s tweet to the American public that he felt F-35 costs were out of control, which wiped of $4 billion of market cap in a day, it was both gripping and profound.

 

When Piyush Gupta recounted how he turned around the Singapore bank DBS, now the largest in southeast Asia, with an audacious vision of becoming the Alibaba of the banking sector – a technology company that delivers financial services, not vice versa – it was very powerful.

 

One theme that cut across the interviews was that of humility, and Reed Hastings of Netflix shared a very memorable story of how he learned what servant leadership meant. As a young engineer before founding Netflix, he’d work late nights and consume a lot of coffee. In the morning his coffee cups were always cleaned from his desk and put away. One morning he came back to the office early only to find someone at the sink cleaning the cups. That person, to his surprise, was the CEO of the company! On being caught in the act the CEO smiled and said, “You do so much for us, this is the least I can do for you.”

 

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Three Essential Parts Of A Mission Statement

A lot of companies struggle when creating their mission statement. Author  Peter F. Drucker  provides the following good advice in one of my favorite book's of his,  The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization : Every mission statement has to reflect three things : Opportunities Competence Commitment In other words, he explains: What is our purpose? Why do we do what we do? What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for? How well does your mission statement meet Drucker's recommended three requirements?

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability .  They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

6 Ways To Seek Feedback To Improve Your Performance In The Workplace

Getting feedback is an important way to improve performance at work. But sometimes, it can be hard to seek out, and even harder to hear.  “Feedback is all around you. Your job is to find it, both through asking directly and observing it,” says David L. Van Rooy, author of the new book,  Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be . As today's guest post, Van Rooy offers these  six tips for how to get the feedback you need to improve performance at work . Guest Post By David L. Van Rooy 1.       Don’t forget to as k :  One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming things are going perfectly (until they make a catastrophic mistake). By not asking, you’re missing out on opportunities for deep feedback: the difficult, critical feedback that gives you constructive ways to improve. 2.       Make sure you listen :  Remember, getting feedback is about improving your performance, not turning it into a “you versus the

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership .  In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself.  It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust.  The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes.  In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter.  In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catalyst for

3 Things Your Mission Statement Must Have

A lot of companies struggle when creating their mission statement. Author Peter F. Drucker provides the following good advice in one of my favorite book's of his, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization :" Every mission statement has to reflect three things : Opportunities Competence Commitment In other words, he explains: What is our purpose? Why do we do what we do? What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for? How well does your mission statement meet Drucker's recommended three requirements?

5 Tips For Generating Ideas From Employees

Your employees have lots of ideas.  So, be sure you provide the forums and mechanisms for your employees to share their ideas with you.  Hold at least a few brainstorming sessions each year, as well. And, when you are brainstorming with your employees, try these five tips: Encourage ALL ideas.  Don't evaluate or criticize ideas when they are first suggested. Ask for wild ideas.  Often, the craziest ideas end up being the most useful. Shoot for quantity not quality during brainstorming. Encourage everyone to offer new combinations and improvements of old ideas.

How To Survive And Then Reset To Ultimately Thrive

“Uncertainty is here to stay. Rather than seeing it as an obstacle to overcome, integrate it into your strategic approach to invigorate your high-growth potential and outperform competition under any market condition,” explains Rebecca Homkes , author of the new book, Survive, Reset, Thrive .   “Most books aren’t honest enough about how hard it is to reset ,” adds Homkes. Yet, resetting and leaning into change is essential. “If you are ready to embrace change as a central element of your growth strategy, this book is for you.” Homkes’ book is a timely, comprehensive, and essential read for business leaders looking to take the next step toward ensuring high growth for their companies. The book brings together more than 15 years of Homkes working directly with high-growth companies of all sizes and across a wide variety of industries.   Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) is a practical and innovative interconnected three-mode approach :   Survive : Stabilizing your business when

Use A Board Of Advisors

David Burkus often provides valuable comments to my various Blog postings, and he's a person who effectively uses a board of advisors, instead of mentors, to help him achieve success. "I've found that in my life, it was easier and more effective to set up a board of advisors," said Burkus, the editor of LeaderLab . "This is a group of people, three to five, that have rotated into my life at various times and that speak into it and help me grow. I benefit from the variety of experience these people have." LeaderLab is an online community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. Its contributors include consultants and professors who present leadership theory in a practitioner-friendly format that provides easy-to-follow explanations on how to apply the best of leadership theory. Community users can download a variety of research reports and presentations about leadership and leadership versus management. For example, a pr

3 Coaching And Mentoring Tips

Here are three great tips from the book, The Everything Coaching and Mentoring Book : Coaches do not motivate their employees; they inspire them to motivate themselves.  This is best accomplished by allowing employees to see clearly where they stand in the organization versus where they want to be in their careers.  That is, what are their self-interests versus what the company can offer them. A mentor always exercises the power of suggestion. That is, wise mentors offer up plenty of suggestions to their mentees. They pose alternatives.  But they refrain, as much as possible, from telling their mentees what to do. Mentoring is all about sharing experiences.  It is about mentors imparting the multiple lessons that they've learned to their mentees and helping them better navigate through their own careers.  By absorbing these lessons--of mentors' mistakes and successes--mentees are better prepared to move forward with knowledge and confidence.

How To Avoid 8 Common Performance Evaluation Pitfalls

As the year comes to a close it's likely time for many business leaders to tackle the annual performance appraisal process. So, here is a good reminder from author Sharon Armstrong about how to avoid eight performance evaluation pitfalls .  These are in what I consider is the best chapter of the book The Essential HR Handbook , that she co-authored with Barbara Mitchell. 1.  Clustering everyone in the middle performance-rating categories 2.  Overlooking flaws or exaggerating the achievements of favored employees 3.  Excusing substandard performance or behavior because it is widespread 4.  Letting one characteristic - positive or negative - affect your overall assessment 5.  Rating someone based on the company he or she keeps 6.  Rating someone based on a grudge you are holding 7.  Rating someone based on a short time period instead of the entire evaluation period 8.  Rating everyone high, to make you look good There's other great information in this 250-page book th