Balancing Selfishness and Servitude: The CEO's Dilemma

As a CEO, you have one of the toughest jobs out there. With a seemingly endless list of demands from various stakeholders, it can be challenging to navigate this role successfully. But in order to thrive, CEOs must be both selfish and servant-hearted. This idea has come up in recent conversations with CEOs, highlighting the need for these contrasting approaches in their leadership.

On one hand, CEOs must prioritize their own needs and goals. They must effectively organize their teams, priorities, and workflow to maximize their impact and leverage. However, they must also take on the role of a servant-leader, caring for their team and enabling them to grow and succeed.

So how can CEOs balance these two seemingly opposing approaches? By removing barriers to speed and ensuring maximum clarity in their vision, mission, values, and goals.

As a CEO, especially a founder CEO, you are on a one-way path to delivering a big outcome. This is why it's strategic and valuable to get there as quickly as possible. Momentum and growth attract investors, customers, partners, talent, and ultimately, acquirers. Recognizing the importance of speed, CEOs can best serve their teams by removing any obstacles that slow them down.

The best employees want to learn, grow, and advance their careers. Nothing will help them achieve this better than being part of a company that is on the rise. Teams work most efficiently when they have a clear understanding of their goals and purpose. CEOs can reinforce this clarity by constantly reinforcing their vision, mission, values, and goals and connecting them to the work their teams are doing.

Additionally, CEOs can help their teams and companies succeed by focusing their efforts. While the ultimate vision may be broad, the path to achieving it must be narrow and focused. Start with one segment or channel at a time, rather than spreading your efforts too thin. This will help your company move faster and more effectively towards your goals.

As a CEO, you want your vision to become a reality. To achieve this, you must selfishly orient your company in a way that maximizes your impact. Research has shown that there is a strong correlation between CEO performance and company outcome. Given this, you can best serve your stakeholders by organizing things in a way that maximizes your impact as CEO.

Paradoxically, a key aspect of maximizing your impact as CEO involves serving your team. Give them complete clarity on direction and remove any barriers that may slow them down. By balancing your role as a selfish and servant-hearted leader, you can effectively lead your team and company to success.