Summary: What you do before you step into a leadership role is critical to your success as a leader. A well thought out plan can not only support your transition it can elevate you quickly and effectively. In Michael D.Watkins book The First 90 Days he shares more insight on this topic and is well worth a read should you be planning to move into a bigger role in 2025.

There comes a time in a leaders tenure when great things happen. These occurrences may be consistently experienced, or not, you may never find greatness, or you may stumble by it and not realise greatness till a later time.

The word is up for interpretation and who is the so called judge on what great is? There are much smarter brains around the world who can clarify that word Greatness better than me but I have the privilege of seeing it more often than not through the executives I coach.

As an executive leadership coach my work takes me into many different types of organisations from Fortune100, government, global brands, family run, not for profits (you get the gist). My work is to work alongside CEO’s and be their external coach. Over the past few years as my business has grown through referral, I am sitting with some very competent CEO’s. Supporting them, being a trusted sounding board etc.

Many of these international CEO’s are extremely competitive- basically they want to win. I liken some to sports stars, they want to show up, they give it their all and they hate losing. Now don’t get me wrong, most of my current clients are quiet achievers, they are not your standing on top of the mountain bashing their chests saying look at me – look at how great I am…….no they are very understated. Sure they have a title which opens up doors – they have a black book filled with the right people and they are doing ok in life but you wouldn’t know it – they quietly go about his/her business and are doing some amazing things around the world.

Never judge a book by its cover!

Real life example:

I’m a good leader Nick, my people love working for me, our results this year are outstanding, but I want more! CEO client in New Zealand.

Leadership comes in all shapes and sizes and those who are attracted to working with me are not your typical box ticking executives. Far from it, they are the curious ones. They want and strive for more, they struggle to settle and will not rest on their successes. God it would be a boring place if every CEO and leader was the same.

What I have come to appreciate that those who seek more are the ones who in time really do make a difference as opposed to those who take a rinse and repeat approach to leadership, it worked for me before so it will work again for me. Alarm bells……….times they move, people move, customers move, political environments move, the world moves – so be mindful of what worked in the past may not be what is needed today.

Good leaders have some tried and trusted go to methods just like elite sports people who have a routine before a big game. The leaders who engage with me seek a sounding board to discuss in confidence their thoughts, ideas and or concerns.  

Across 2024 I have had the privilege of coaching 14 Chief Executive Officers (CEO) around the world, all lead organisations with a sizeable footprint and have multiple stakeholders. 3 stand out as truly ‘great’ leaders but what sets them apart from good CEOs? 

As a CEO it is your duty of care to serve your people, your stakeholders, your customers and your communities. That’s a great deal of ‘people’. When executives transition into a CEO role many share with me the sheer lack of ‘time’. Many are in a hurry and have completely forgotten why they do what they do and where they are going. 

Some themes that I see in good functional CEO’s

*they make time for people

*they effortlessly move

*they are calm

*they know their people, stakeholders and customers

*they expect and set compelling standards

*they actually lead not manage

*they don’t play games with people they ‘call it’

As a CEO Coach it’s important to ensure that when I engage with a CEO together we have our ‘rules of engagement’ which boils down to clarity on our roles and responsibilities. If we are not on the same page then we shouldn’t work together. 

Those 3 CEO’s who stood out had something very few have. Sure they were coachable but more than that and the short list above, they took very little of my time and what I mean by that was they were extremely proactive, ahead thinking. They reflected deeply and they course corrected at the right time. Amazing to sit alongside, a blessing to appreciate first class leadership and even better was I and their key stakeholders got to see them transition from a ‘good CEO’ to a ‘great CEO’. 

The CEO of yesterday won’t be the CEO of today or to that point tomorrow. I am confident that we will see more ‘dual’ CEO roles in 2025 and beyond it’s starting to take shape and getting quality results. Taking two minds, put them together to see what might be achievable. 

I have huge confidence that our future leaders will be dramatically different to those CEOs who are currently leading organisations. I will save that blog for the new year. 

As we come to the end of 2024 and turn to 2025 I come back to a question I like to ask potential clients. ‘How Great A Leader Do You Actually Want To Be’? If it’s very really great then let’s meet.

It’s exciting time to lead, it’s exciting times to be in business.