Pod Insights Growth Think Tank The CEO Habits You Think Are Helping, But Aren’t with Gene Hammett, CEO Coach - Part 2 About this episode In this episode of Grow Think Tank, I tackle harmful habits many CEOs unknowingly adopt that hinder their leadership and organizational growth. I emphasize the importance of regular executive team meetings for alignment and accountability. Building on previous insights, I discuss the risks of over-functioning for team members, resisting structure, and overly relying on the CEO for decision-making. Empowering teams with autonomy, maintaining communication through structure, and shifting focus to strategic leadership are key principles I advocate for creating an efficient and resilient organization.
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0:29 Speaker 01 You want to have the kind of structure that gives you freedom. A lot of companies aren't having weekly executive team meetings. It's surprising to me how many people continue to function and want more alignment, but they're not willing to invest 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, sometimes 90 minutes a week. You can do it bi-weekly. I give my clients a pass if it's working for them, but I really believe most businesses, 90% of them out there, have a weekly meeting. So this is just one example of structure, but you want to have, embrace the structure and let it do some of the heavy lifting for you. You definitely want your sub-teams to be meeting on a regular basis. If you have a sales team, if you have a marketing team, if you have an operations team, whatever
1:13 Speaker 01 it may be, development team, they should be having meetings and many times without you. And so you want that structure. Welcome to Grow Think Tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest-growing privately-held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hammett. I help leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow? Today is another solo episode where we talk about part two of the CEO habits that you think are helping, but they really aren't. When you are getting into the role of CEO, there's a lot of skills, there's a lot depending on you, and it is very common for you to do what you've always done because that's
1:58 Speaker 01 what's easy, that's what you know, that's natural. I've been through these cycles too, and I've watched my clients go through the cycles, and many times you're not really getting the traction you want. And you wonder why, because in our, our experience with our habits and what we do day in and day out as a CEO typically changes. So today is part two of the CEO habits that you think are helping, but really aren't. And so my name is Gene Hammett. I'm a CEO coach. I've been doing this since 2012 as my sole income. We have multiple businesses, but my primary purpose is to help businesses grow, help leaders evolve, shifting their mindset, shifting their skillset and shifting their identity. And there's many inflection points as this happens. If you're curious about the work
2:42 Speaker 01 we do, your next step would be to go to a free training that we offer every week, training.corelevations.com and it will help you really understand where you're stuck as a leader and will help you get through that, at least give you some clarity around it. There's definitely some, some tools in there. I think you want to know. Just go to training.corelevations.com. So as we have already done the first three, the first one was chasing new ideas where if you're always chasing the new ideas and not really sticking with what's working and make that better, you will find yourself always chasing something and not getting something really built. And so I'm not going to go into unpack that. You can always go back to the other
3:24 Speaker 01 video we did last week. Number two is staying in the weeds, which is it's easier to do it yourself. This, it may sound like it's great. You are getting work done, but it just doesn't help you to create the kind of, of employees and leaders you want. And the third one would be avoiding tough conversations. Too many people have a frame around giving feedback or addressing tough conversations and they're not sure when they should do it. I was just talking to a, to a leader today and he's like, I'm going to have a tough conversation, but I'm only going to share 20% of what I really want to share. And we talked about that. I do believe he's shifting that idea after we talked about the need for transparency, the need for truly being explicit
4:07 Speaker 01 as, as whatever he's facing is a very serious deal. And he, I want to make sure he's prepared for that tough conversation. So those are the first three. Let's go over the, the other three as we wrap this video up. In a very short fashion because I want to help you become a better leader. The CEO habits that you think are helping, but they're not. One or number four is over functioning for your team. When you are filling in the gaps for a team because they don't have a skill set. It makes sense, you know, when you jump in and solve the problem, it makes total sense. But when you jump in, you're teaching them that there's a safety blanket.
4:46 Speaker 01 When you hold back and you let them figure out their challenges, let them fail and pick up the pieces. When you truly are coaching someone through that next level of growth. And coaching gets misunderstood quite often, but when you are using your coaching skills. Uh, I'm not going to teach you those today, but you are not doing it for them. You are helping them build their confidence, help them have clarity around what's next. And then you hold them accountable to doing that. That is a better way to get your, your employees to function instead of jumping in and doing it yourself. Number five in this list of CEO habits that you think are helping, but they aren't is resisting structure. You want to have the kind of structure that gives you freedom.
5:29 Speaker 01 A lot of companies aren't having a weekly executive team meetings. It's surprising to me how many people continue to function and want more alignment. But they're not willing to invest thirty minutes, forty five minutes, an hour, sometimes ninety minutes a week. You can do it by weekly. I, I, I give my clients a pass if it's working for them. But I really believe most businesses, ninety percent of them out there have a weekly meeting. And so this is just one example of structure, but you want to have embrace the structure and let it do some of the heavy lifting for you. You definitely want your sub teams to be meeting on a regular basis. If you have a sales team, if you have a marketing team, if you have an operations team, whatever it may be, development team. They should be having meetings and many times without you.
6:14 Speaker 01 And so you want that structure. Why wouldn't you have it for your executive team? Um, that's number five. Number six is building a business that depends on you. If you're the one that's expected to make all the decisions, you don't really have a company. Bottleneck. Obviously, you probably don't make all the decisions. That is a very misnomer when I say that. But when you make most of the decisions, or when you make only the big decisions, it makes sense when you only make the big decisions. It's proper thinking. But the problem is, we think we should make more of the decisions than we actually do. We should be empowering people to think for themselves and be able to make those decisions.
6:56 Speaker 01 Because if they don't get the repetition of doing it, and the cycles of options in front of them, and even wrestling with the doubt of which way to go, and looking at the data. Your job, again, is to coach them through the process to let them make more decisions so that over time, when you need them to make decisions, when you're not there, they have a basis for that. They have a structure, and they have the confidence to do it. And so if you are building a business that is dependent on you, you will turn around and have a bunch of employees that are waiting for you, and you become that bottleneck. All of these habits, the CEO habits, that you think are helping or not, are really centered around you creating a different kind of company.
7:40 Speaker 01 I expose these for you because I want you to really think about, what does it take to create the business of your dreams? I don't think the business of your dreams is, I want to be in every meeting, I want to be a part of every decision, and I want to hold their hands through everything. Typically, when I ask CEOs, what's your dream business? They want to rise up to be CEOs, and eventually be chairman of the board, so that they don't have to be involved with the day-to-day, but they get to be involved with the best parts of the business, whether it be the board meetings, whether it be coaching other executives, or defining strategy and vision, but they don't have to do any of the day-to-day functions. Now, hopefully, that sounds intriguing to you. If you want more depth around this, again, we have a free training. Just go to training.coalition.com. You can sign up for free.
8:25 Speaker 01 You do it every week, so no matter when you're hearing this, you should be able to sign up for the next one. My name's Gene Hammett. When you think of growth, when you think of leadership, think of Growth Think Tank. As always, with your courage, we'll see you next time.
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