Be honest with yourself and your employees. When you make a mistake, be very, very transparent and say, ‘Hey, I screwed up.’ Explain what you did.
When people see you have integrity and you’re honest, they see the human side of it, and people are willing to forgive when you make a mistake.
One of the challenges I found in talking to other CEOs is that they are not honest with themselves — I mean truly honest.
Most CEOs just can’t get out of their own way. They think about the business being their business, and [they need to be] honest with themselves that the company is greater than them — you are only as good as the team around you. And when you make a mistake — whether it’s a direction, whether it’s a project — go to that person who may be affected by it. What I’ve found is, when you’re honest about a mistake, people will forgive that.
And when something good happens, they’re even more excited about you because they know you care.
People always question whether the CEO, ‘Does he really care about me, does he really care about the company, or is he looking out for himself?’ As soon as people know that you care, you can feel comfortable in your own skin as a CEO.
Get out of your own way. The first thing about getting out of your own way as a CEO is when you realize that, ‘Hey, this company is far greater than me.’ You stop trying to control everything. A big issue that we have as CEOs is we think that, without us on a daily basis, that the company is not going to be able to live.
I had the pleasure of meeting another CEO, a franchise executive. This man is author of a franchise book and somebody who I dearly respect in franchising. He has this same problem. He barks orders to his staff. He’s successful, yet he feels like he’s caged.
I said to him, ‘Here’s my recommendation. … No longer think of this, your business, as you have to control everything. Think of yourself as a founding father of your company because what that does is you get out of your own way of the business and you start looking at the company long term.’
Some CEOs think this company is about me. ‘I need to make it work. I need to call all the shots.’ Really, in essence, they don’t.
How to reach: i9 Sports Corp., (800) 975-2937 or www.i9sports.com
