To be successful in our current competitive market, a CEO must be more than an image on branded materials or a speaker on a platform. Today’s CEO must be compassionate, trustworthy and truly engaged with their teams and clients. Here, I am sharing the five traits I believe every successful company leader should display.
A willingness to learn and listen. Having the ability and willingness to learn new techniques, receive coaching, listen to the opinions of others and develop their own emotional and social intelligence is imperative. Equally important is honing their communication skills and moving beyond past experiences when it comes to decision making. This makes a CEO more adaptable with new fresh ideas to new challenges and situations.
Openness and transparency. These are vital ingredients for effective leadership – if your people don’t know where they are going and why, they will never follow and support you to the level required for creating a trusted environment and culture. Being approachable in the office and having set ‘open house” times can have very positive effects as an example.
A true appreciation of what’s required for high employee engagement. If a CEO really cares about what his people need to be happy at work and valued in their roles, a culture of trust and respect is supported from the top down.
A high level of visibility to clients and consumers. CEOs who engage with all of their stakeholders by getting outside their office, presenting, active on social media, provide media interviews wherever appropriate and possible, create a higher degree of authentic personality in the brand that so many consumers demand today.
Solid relationship building skills. The ability to build trusted, solid relationships is one of the most valuable skills a CEO can possess or continually develop. Being talked about as a CEO who is truly interested in others, respects their input, is prepared to support their ideas and promote them to others and make people feel valued, who always does what they say they will do, are just some of the ways of creating a solid CEO brand that gets talked about and subsequently creates a personality to the corporate brand that truly differentiates.
