07/06/2020

When A CEO’s ‘Position Authority’ Gets In The Way

Authoritarian overload can destroy curiosity, creativity and innovation.

By default, CEOs have position authority – they are the senior-most executives in their organizations who serve as agents on behalf of their boards, investors or sometimes themselves as owners. They are responsible for establishing direction and setting goals and are ultimately accountable for an organization’s success or failure. Being CEO of any organization, big or small, is a challenging job that requires leadership. Sometimes leadership demands effective use of authority such as making tough decisions on competing strategic alternatives. Most often, however, it requires building and empowering a senior team, tapping into their collective talents, creativity, insights and intelligence and transforming this into a laser-focus towards achieving a shared purpose in which employees want to be a part.

Overused Position Authority
In our work with executive teams, we seldom observe CEOs who purposefully rely on their position authority as a primary means of leading. It is quite rare to hear authority-focused comments such as “Do it because I said so” or “I used to run sales, so this is how we are going to approach this customer.” However, we do sometimes witness CEOs unintentionally use their position power to coerce, convince or intervene with their direct reports and other employees. There are a few common and often related root causes for these overused authority mishaps: stress, worldview bias and avoidance.

Stress: Stress can challenge even the most well-meaning leaders. When CEOs find themselves juggling too many important issues, are faced with significant declines in organizational performance or begin to feel insecure about a particular issue, stress can impact how they interact with others. A range of emotions can ensue, including diminished curiosity, creativity, objectivity and empathy. In fact, many studies suggest that high stress causes us to focus more on relieving the stress than thinking through longer-term implications and ramifications of our actions.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Chief Executive.