CEO Corner: What success gives you permission to skip

The longer you lead, the fewer people will tell you that you showed up unprepared.

Your teammates fill in the gaps. They adjust to your schedule. Tie up your loose ends. Eventually, you can mistake how well people accommodate you for how well you are leading.

That is a dangerous place to get comfortable.

A moment from this week’s World Series made me think about this. Christian Yelich, a former MVP and one of Milwaukee’s most accomplished players, helped set up a huge inning by hustling to beat a throw. Afterward, a teammate explained that Yelich also leads the team’s baserunning meetings. The veteran still teaches the microscopic details and was still executing them himself when it mattered most. Those little details and leading by example ended up making a huge difference.

I love that. Success had given him credibility, and he was using it to reinforce the standard. He didn’t take his position and success as a right to do less; he did more.

Inside a company, success can gradually give people permission to skip it. Or the right to show others how to earn it.

The exceptions become the culture

As your responsibilities grow, you have to delegate. A CEO who insists on touching everything slows the company down.

But you still owe people preparation for the decisions you own, clear direction and follow-through. You lead by example by reading all the prep work, doing the little things, caring more than seems required.

When a senior leader neglects those responsibilities, someone else inherits the work. People chase answers, never solve a common problem, and revisit conversations because a decision was never actually made. And they learn a bad pattern.

The leader may barely notice. The team feels that burden every day.

They also learn from it. If the person demanding accountability leaves commitments unresolved, accountability becomes negotiable. If a CEO doesn’t do the work or tolerates others’ mediocrity, everyone understands what the company tolerates.

You can spend an entire offsite defining your culture and undo it with the behavior you accept the following Monday. 

What does your team have to work around?

I am intensely competitive. I push hard, and I want to build something great alongside people who feel the same way.

That requires being honest about what it is like to work with me.

After more than two decades running a company, people know your preferences and anticipate your questions. They know what level of excellence is demanded and how much I demand of myself. Sometimes that helps them move faster. Sometimes they have learned to work around you.

Those can look surprisingly similar from the CEO’s chair.

A useful question is: What does my team have to do because I have not done my part? Am I running out every play and trying to beat every throw. Am I coaching and developing? Am I demanding anything that I am not role modeling.

Maybe they are waiting for priorities I have not clarified. Maybe I asked for speed, but kept the decision with me or am afraid to make it. Maybe they needed me to make an executive decision, but I assumed they would handle it.

Asking everyone else to execute harder will not fix those problems. I have to. We have to. Together.

Make your influence count

At Achieve, I want our experienced leaders to make the people around them better through sound judgment, clear direction and a commitment to developing talent.

That starts with being someone others can depend on.

The more credibility you have, the more weight your behavior carries. When you come prepared, welcome a challenge and honor a commitment, you strengthen those expectations for everyone.

Your team should benefit from your success. They should not have to compensate for it.