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.
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.
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.
I think you guys are falling victim to the same oversimplification implied by the article. That is, that you can boil the CEO's success-potential down to a handful of traits.
The article is interesting, and there probably is generally value in the traits outlined but, no discrete set of characteristics is deterministic. Not only are other personality factors involved, but it also depends on the product, team, etc. The lazy CEO might be perfect when paired with the workaholic CTO.
Counter example. I worked in a company with a lazy CEO, present 3 hours a week. But a great team, paid well. We were happy and accomplished some very good work.
Not saying this is the way to go. But to this day, I am surprised it worked out.
I've worked in a small startup with a lazy CEO. That's not the descriptor you're looking for. A good CEO lives and breathes the company, and also delegates.
A lazy CEO does things like not supply payslip information because he couldn't be bothered, or spends the afternoons watching sportsball next to his colleagues who are working.
That's incompetent as well as lazy. The saying refers to someone who is intelligent yet lazy. An intelligent CEO would have delegated payslips to someone who would get the job done. Also an intelligent CEO wouldn't let you know he was bunking off all day for moral.
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.