He also understood the process of organizing a plant to build a car.
Scott Belsky knows how to use Photoshop and remembers what it was like to run a small business.
And Sarah Jones knows exactly what is required to be on stage, alone, in a crowded theater.
The world keeps changing (faster than ever) and leading our team (and our career) requires us to do things we didn’t used to know how to do.
In essence, the CEO of every organization, of every size, is more incompetent than ever before. It’s not enough to know how to use the product and have empathy for your customers.
Are you making decisions about AI, supply chains, vendor management, the sales pipeline or employee health?
It’s hard to wing it if you haven’t flown before, and now most of what CEOs do (even for companies of one or two people) has little to do with the actual product or service on offer.
One alternative is to freak out, bury your head and hope for the best.
The other is to use the system to learn about the system. Instead of winging it, find the time to learn enough to make good decisions and to understand the tools well enough to benefit from hiring people to use them.
Because that’s what CEOs make. They make decisions.