Your Ego is Your Worst Enemy!

Over the years that I’ve been helping people with their careers I’ve seen a couple of types of executives. There are those who are spectacular successes and those who are successes. Give me the one who is merely a success any day, because, sooner or later, the “spectacular success” is going to crash and burn. If you’re a stockholder or board member of a company run by a spectacular success, better hope that he or she doesn’t take your company along with him or her when the fall comes.

I don’t think I need to give a list of the CXOs whose egos have resulted in the fall of once-high-flying companies like Enron, etc. Here are some things to take a hard look at if you’re a board member, a stockholder, or a “C” level executive to keep your company from winding up in the "Hall of Shame."

1). Why is the person who is CXO in that chair? This is a very hard question that boards should ask. Many people are bamboozled by “C” level charisma. Take it from my 25+ years of experience, charismatic CXOs are very dangerous. The best individual to run a company is not charismatic, but a little on the boring side.

Too many boards have been taken down the primrose path by a man or woman with “star power.” Unfortunately, men and women with “star power” have gigantic egos. They like to be in the limelight, and this can, and probably will, mean losses for your company.

The best CXO is one that is taking care of business, not polishing an image. The gladhander who knows everyone is almost certainly going to eventually be a poor CXO. The reason is simple — these people are narcissists. They will do whatever is necessary to get their “strokes” and attention. Give me the quiet, competent type any day to the “celebrity CEO.”

2). Is this person being paid too much? The answer is almost certainly “yes.” American companies have gotten into a very bad habit of paying “C” level executives based on hype as opposed to performance. I’m amazed when a “C” level executive is paid a huge bonus when the company has lost money. While I’m firmly against government regulation of this practice (or any other business practice) it is bad business and the “payday” will come sooner or later.

Pay “C” level executives for performance and revenue, not smoke and mirrors.

3). Whose interests is this person looking after — yours and the company’s or his or her own interests? Good CXOs see that they succeed when the company succeeds, and believe in a “team success” approach. Egotistical (poor) ones think that what is good for them is good for the company. A good CXO is like a good naval ship officer — the company comes first.

Watch your management team carefully and see whether or not the company is coming first. If not, it is time to chop some heads and put in some folks who will fulfill their duty to the stockholders, employees and customers of the company instead of polishing their own image or enriching their own bank accounts at the expense of the company. (Don’t get me wrong — I have nothing against large CXO salaries or money! I just think that it should be obtained the old fashioned way — by earning it.)

4). Is the CXO surrounded by “yes wo/men?” No one can make good decisions when they’re being told how wonderful they are at everything. A good CXO has advisors that will tell him/her the truth. As an executive coach, I often have to deliver an ego blow to help the executive. I can do this because I don’t work for the executive. Yes, I have had executives whose egos were too big to take this. They eventually failed, usually sooner than later. If your executives are surrounded by toadies, they’re not looking out after your interests. If you’re a board member or major stockholder, insist that your management team have coaches, advisors, or some way of getting independent, third party advice. Of course, assure that the coaching team is going to keep your business secrets secret. A good non-disclosure form with teeth helps. Your corporate counsel can, I’m sure, give you an example.

5). Is your CXO constantly seeking the limelight? While it is good to get publicity for the company, the media is notoriously fickle. They’ll love you one day and fry you the next. The CXO should be handling the company or division, and the PR Department should be handling the media (or carefully coaching the executives on how to do so). Keep your corporate officers away from the media as much as possible, leaving media relations to professionals at it.

6). What is the lifestyle of the CXO. You want a CXO that has a solid and tranquil domestic life with a partner that loves him or her, grown or well-behaved kids, and no nasty habits. You don't want your CXO in “People Magazine.”

Executives with mistresses, flashy lifestyles, playboy (or playgirl) habits, addictions or strange behaviors are not what you want! You want the attention to be on the company, not the lifestyles of the corporate officers.

Too many times American businesses have lost sight of the goal, which should be to make money for stockholders, provide customers with a quality, reliable product or service, employees with stable and enjoyable employment, and future generations with a company as a legacy.

The “perp walks” of the early 2000’s should have been a wake-up call to American business to police its own house. Instead, all it got us was SarbOx (a terrible law that does nothing except cost us money and time), and a black eye in the mind of the American public.

Good CXOs keep their eye on the ball and don’t get distracted by their egos. If you want to be a movie star, go to Hollywood. If you want to run a company, run a company. It’s that simple.

Here's to your prosperity,

J.

Welcome!

Welcome to the CEO Skills Corner. This new blog will exclusively address the skills and concerns of "C" Level executives in corporate America.

This blog will receive new articles at least weekly on a variety of topics. Of course, I always welcome your questions and comments, and will do my best to address them either personally or in an article. If you're asking a question, it is likely that many of your colleagues have a similar concern.

Who am I and why should you spend the time reading my articles? For the first post, here is my bio.

John Heckers, MA, CPC, BCPC is President of Heckers Development Group, LTD, an executive coaching and consulting firm based in Cherry Creek, Colorado, specializing in high level Executive Coaching, Corporate Training, Executive Transition Consulting and Strategic Corporate Coaching. John has consulted to both Fortune 500 and smaller companies, and has trained and coached executives from AT&T, New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, Microsoft Corporation, IBM, Maxtor/Seagate, The Prudential, United Airlines, Children’s Hospital, Concentra Health Systems, Merck-Medco, Hewlett/Packard, Citibank of New York, Corporate Express, Stryker Corporation, Qwest, First Data Resources, FEMA, The United States Armed Forces, and many other organizations. John has over 28 years of experience in helping and counseling executives, professional counseling, executive transition (career) counseling and professional training.

John Heckers is published both nationally and internationally as a business columnist, is featured as an employment blogger for ColoradoBiz Magazine Today on-line, on the Jobing.com website (Jobing.com is a national job board and employment advisory website), has served as an employment expert on the Diversity Website Latpro and served as the internationally syndicated employment columnist for The Denver Business Journal and the national and international online bizjournals.com for over 6 years. His articles have been syndicated in business journals across the United States and Canada, and has also had his articles republished in business periodicals in Europe and Asia, translated into five languages. He has had frequent appearances on numerous television news programs and radio talk shows as an employment expert, including Denver’s KCNC, WB2, and KHOW radio, among others.

John Heckers graduated with his Baccalaureate degree in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1977, did graduate studies at the University of Toronto, Trinity College, in 1978 and 1979, and graduated from Denver’s Iliff School of Theology with distinction with his Master of Arts degree in 1989.

He is past president of the Colorado Association of Psychotherapists, served on the boards of directors of the Jefferson Center for Mental Health, the Rocky Mountain Information Management Association, and the International Attention and Behavioral Institute. In 1995, Heckers was appointed by Governor Roy Romer to the Colorado State Mental Health Grievance Board, where he served for three years. He also has served as a Senior Research Fellow for the Magellan Center, a non-partisan and not-for-profit think tank in Colorado devoted to employment issues.

So, there you have it. You may expect a new post on this blog in the next couple of days. If you’d like to know whenever we update, don’t forget to subscribe via the link on the sidebar.

Thanks, and I look forward to having you as a regular reader.

John H. Heckers, MA, CPC, BCPC