Miles told the Sacramento Bee that “feedback at the top can be elusive. “When you reach a certain level, there are many fewer people giving you advice – especially inside the company. But even the most talented CEOs have their blind spots, and can use constructive feedback to leverage an already-gifted mind.”

Miles, who is president and founder of The Miles Group, offers advice for those trying to help CEOs to elevate their performance:

  1. Establish credibility. “Genius leaders don’t want to work with just anyone, and they will balk at a cookie-cutter approach to coaching. To influence this person, you have to have content credibility that is established through your experiences and track record. You can’t waste their time by getting up to speed on their time, so you must go into the situation knowing the circumstances and context. Once you are ‘in’ with the CEO, and become one of his or her trusted advisors, the impact of your work together multiplies geometrically.”
  2. Understand what you can change – and what you can’t. “One of the first things I hear when I am in the boardroom discussing a potential CEO coaching engagement is that ‘the CEO is not really that coachable.’ And the fact is, I am not going to change someone’s foundational leadership style. What we can change is to add range to their style that they can apply to different situations. For example, a CEO may require a more facilitative approach when he or she is leading a brainstorming session with a team, but a more directive approach in a situation where a decision has been made and the focus is on the ‘how,’ not the ‘what.’ CEOs need a broad range of styles at their disposal so that they can increase their overall effectiveness tremendously.”
  3. Focus on improving performance vs. fixing what is broken. “There is often an education process that starts when approaching the coachee – that this is high-performance coaching, not remediation. This is not the time to put up the mirror and describe in gory detail all the things that are wrong with them. Like Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison, most geniuses have extreme behaviors, many of which may have contributed to their business success. So coaching these leaders requires focusing on the one or two areas that really will make a difference in improving their leadership effectiveness.”
  4. Pay homage. “Let’s face it, CEOs are human, and every human being has an ego. Even a brilliant CEO – or maybe especially a brilliant CEO – needs you to understand what they aregood at. By affirming who they are and understanding their specific situation in detail, you can begin to gain their trust and influence their behavior.”
  5. Be gradual. “While some CEOs might be a bit resistant to change, an equally problematic issue may be the type-A CEO who wants to change too quickly. He or she may want to be the 2.0 version the very next day, and this can be a catastrophic error. If CEOs try to implement their new ‘style’ before they are ready and have a bad experience, they will never try it again and often will retrench even further into their old form. The key is to practice adding range to their style, first through role play and then gradually in safe environments, while over time adding to their skill level and adding to the degree of difficulty. As they reinforce the new behaviors in increasingly difficult environments, they build their own confidence with the approach and eventually it becomes part of their foundational style.”

The work-around: bring in the CEO’s “right hand man.” “For leaders who are truly uncoachable, you have to improvise. There are individuals like Steve Jobs who are genius but are highly unlikely to be changed through any type of coaching. In these situations, we can use organizational design and complementary leaders to enhance the overall genius. Apple installed the Chief Operating Officer role and recruited Tim Cook to come into the company and complement their genius founder and CEO, which he did remarkably well. This allowed Steve to focus on what he liked to do and Tim did everything else, allowing the entire system to function at a much higher and more effective level.”

“When the CEO starts to ‘get it,’ the coaching process can have significant returns for the company and tremendously help the CEO himself or herself,” says Mr. Miles. “We can see a CEO’s relationship with his or her board absolutely transform. As UCLA coach John Wooden said, ‘it is what you learn after you know it all that counts.'”

Read: https://www.sacbee.com/2012/11/28/5015644/how-to-coach-star-ceos.html

Read: https://www.businessweek.com/authors/2337-stephen-a-miles-and-nate-bennett

Read: https://topceocoaches.com/

Read: https://www.change-leaders.com/ceo-coaching.html


Chief Executive

Chief Executive magazine (published since 1977) is the definitive source that CEOs turn to for insight and ideas that help increase their effectiveness and grow their business. Chief Executive Group also produces e-newsletters and online content at chiefexecutive.net and manages Chief Executive Network and other executive peer groups, as well as conferences and roundtables that enable top corporate officers to discuss key subjects and share their experiences within a community of peers. Chief Executive facilitates the annual “CEO of the Year,” a prestigious honor bestowed upon an outstanding corporate leader, nominated and selected by a group of peers, and is known throughout the U.S. and elsewhere for its annual ranking of Best & Worst States for Business. Visit www.chiefexecutive.net for more information.

Share
Published by
Chief Executive

Recent Posts

How To Reconfigure A Traditional Industrial Giant For New Era

Johnson Controls CEO Oliver has led a corporate transformation focused on making buildings greener.

2 hours ago

Rachel Barger, Cisco’s Senior Vice President of the Americas, Encourages Us to Always Keep an Open Door

In this edition of our Corporate Competitor Podcast, leadership speaker and storytelling expert Don Yaeger…

2 days ago

Boards May Need To Reevaluate Their Idea Of Acceptable Risk

Boards are being held to a higher standard regarding risk. A more thorough strategy may…

6 days ago

CEOs Can Become Afflicted With ‘Boreout’ Too

If you're experiencing burnout not because you're overworked, but because you're underinspired, it might be…

6 days ago

Why CIOs Should Report Directly To The CEO

When companies elevate the role, they reap significant benefits. Here are five critical ways it…

1 week ago

New-Era Koppers Keeps Staying Ahead Of The Game

CEO Ball has led early decoupling from China and diversification that ties into today’s infrastructure…

1 week ago